Tiro Typeworks @TiroTypeworks

Digital type foundry founded in 1994 by John Hudson & Ross Mills. Tweets mostly by Hudson. tiro.com Islands in the Salish Sea, BC Joined September 2013

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Tiro Typeworks @TiroTypeworks

3 months ago

Short article, republishing a text I wrote for ISType in 2015, considering how we understand emergent properties, in type as in birds. tiro.com/articles/refle…

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@mdileep @Chandu1302 It’s possible to integrate glyph colour with GSUB operations, so a fun idea would be to contextually cycle or pseudo-randomise the colouring, so that the same letter shape gets different colours depending on preceding and/or following letters.

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Tiro Typeworks @TiroTypeworks

4 months ago

@mdileep @VeevenV @telugology @ADarbha18980 @fonts_kumar I think this is something that needs to be preceded by some kind of specification, or multiple specifications*, that identifies the features that should be differentiated by distinct colours. *e.g. for Telugu text, for Sanskrit text, for Pali text...

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Tiro Typeworks @TiroTypeworks

4 months ago

@mdileep @VeevenV @telugology @ADarbha18980 @fonts_kumar I don’t really do fancy display typefaces, so my own interest would be in possible pedagogical uses. I can imagine something like a colourised Tiro Telugu font could be useful to help someone learning to read the script, e.g. by highlighting the vowel part(s) of a ligature.

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Tiro Typeworks @TiroTypeworks

4 months ago

@Konkanist Note: this contextual substitution works correctly in HarfBuzz shaping environments, but not in Apple’s CoreText environment. Investigating.

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Tiro Typeworks @TiroTypeworks

4 months ago

@Konkanist We use this traditional form in our fonts, but if a user wants to force a half form rendering then we contextually substitute the variant form of –tra that connects more aesthetically and doesn’t look disjointed. Think like a scribe, not like a typewriter.

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Tiro Typeworks @TiroTypeworks

5 months ago

I have written up a @harfbuzz issue regarding support of jihvāmūlīya and upadhmānīya, including recommendations for handling the currently script-ambiguous Vedic Extension characters. github.com/harfbuzz/harfb…

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Tiro Typeworks @TiroTypeworks

6 months ago

@Konkanist @a_srinidhi I don’t know where that shape come from, but in general Schegel’s type is really weird. I have a copy of Antpn Boller’s Sanskrit grammar from 1847, and it contains some of the oddest Devanagari shapes I have ever seen excepting those in Diderot’s encyclopedia.

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Tiro Typeworks @TiroTypeworks

6 months ago

New update to the Tiro Builder tool, fixing an issue with hinting in CFF fonts instantiated from CFF2 variable build streams. Just finished testing it on a collection of complex Indic fonts build on-the-fly from multiple sources, which still feels magic. github.com/TiroTypeworks/…

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Tiro Typeworks @TiroTypeworks

6 months ago

Marwari ḍa is an outlier in the Devanagari script, having its stem connection to the head stroke on the left rather than on the right or centered. Wondering if the positioning in the second row might be appropriate, and if anyone has examples to support either positioning?

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Tiro Typeworks @TiroTypeworks

7 months ago

@dwarkesh_sp This is full of inaccuracies. Mainz was a major trading hub on the Rhine. It was not illegal for lay people to read or own Bibles. Most of Gutenberg’s initial print run was presubscribed and sold out immediately. His de facto bankruptcy was due to capital debt, not poor sales.

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Tiro Typeworks @TiroTypeworks

7 months ago

@xomoc @JimMcMurtry01 I’ve written about the typography of First Nations alphabets in the context of the Skeena Indigenous font family. microsoft.github.io/Skeena-Indigen…

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Tiro Typeworks @TiroTypeworks

7 months ago

@xomoc @JimMcMurtry01 In general, there is a strong sense of ownership of these alphabets within BC indigenous language communities, even though they were initially developed with linguists. And I say *with* linguists rather than by linguists, because indigenous speakers were active participants.

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VIEWS Project 🌈 @crewsproject

7 months ago

WAVE 2: Writing As Visual Engagement Conference: 26th-29th March (hybrid) and 11th April (online). Join us for 30+ presentations on writing from around the world, historical and modern! Programme and Zoom registration via the link. viewsproject.wordpress.com/writing-as-vis…

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Tiro Typeworks @TiroTypeworks

9 months ago

Just finished reading _Chinese Characters Across Asia_ by @ZevHandel. It’s the clearest introduction I have read about how the Chinese writing system works—dispelling common, long-held misunderstandings—, and how the script was adapted to Korean, Japanese, Vietnamese, and Zhuang.