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The Beauty Of Typography: Writing Systems And Calligraphy Of The World
- callahad 16y agoHoly cow, has Smashing always published these sorts of articles, or is this an outlier? Quite the departure from their often-linked "40 Wordpress Themes!" posts.
- percept 16y agoI guess there's a mix but I like their compilations. IMO regular viewing of large galleries of designs can only lead to improvement (even if it's "what not to do"), and they've done the assembly work for me.
- pwim 16y agoThis article seems to be mostly a compilation itself. If it was titled "8 Forms of Asian Calligraphy", it would fit into the pattern you describe.
- ilovecomputers 16y agoOf course, Smashing always picks the best free lancers to write for them. Even then, once you get past their list articles, the provide very insightful piece of writing. Most their best stuff is in their design category. Here's a three part series on color: http://www.smashingmagazine.com/2010/02/08/color-theory-for-designer-part-3-creating-your-own-color-palettes/ http://www.smashingmagazine.com/2010/02/08/color-theory-for-...
- chime 16y agoThis was a fascinating and very informative read. I spent many a nights toiling over the intricacies of the Devanagari script when I was coding http://chime.tv/products/hind2000/ss.shtml http://chime.tv/products/hind2000/ss.shtml as a kid. My biggest take-away was that combining different characters is pretty much required though difficult to implement. If you spell "MItI" and then edited it to "MIttI", I would have to replace the 't' with a special double 'tt' character. Simply adding another 't' character would not suffice.
- dadadooda 16y agoThe new convention for happy co-existence with the pared-down font engines packaged in devices like the iPhone is to use two 't' characters after all, but add a slanting accent underneath the first 't' (or whatever letter it is) to indicate that it should only be 'pronounced half'. It's like Nastaliq's (the Urdu script) jazm character: http://users.skynet.be/hugocoolens/newurdu/specials.html http://users.skynet.be/hugocoolens/newurdu/specials.html I think it's a sane move.
- sid0 16y ago> The new convention I don't think the convention of the slanting accent ("virama" or "halant") is new. I know it's been used in books for at least the last hundred years. This means that conjoined ligatures aren't strictly necessary, but they're used a lot in handwriting and IMO look quite beautiful.
- elblanco 16y agohttp://www.omniglot.com http://www.omniglot.com brings me hours of enjoyment.
- purp 16y agoGreat, now I won't sleep tonight as I learn the difference between syllabic alphabets and syllabaries. I hate you in the kindest way possible. ;]
- elblanco 16y agoIt's pretty much one of the best little corners of the Internet ever. You're welcome. :D
- teejae 16y agoIf you're interested in human languages, another great place on the internet is: http://www.ethnologue.com/ http://www.ethnologue.com/ I've spent countless hours on both Omniglot and Ethnologue.
- purp 16y agoJust had to get in on the hate, eh, teejae? Ah, well, I can sleep when I'm dead.
- ThomPete 16y agoTheir best article so far IMHO. Let's get more of this. Articles where you actually learn something.
- zeynel1 16y agoAmazing! Thank you.
- quant18 16y agodon't miss the animation in the middle showing how "Al Jazeera" in Naskh (printed Arabic form) gets transformed into their logo.