Re: Question about customizing emmentaler font

[tisimst]

pkx166h wrote
> Printers call it 'bleed', or it is sometimes known/conflated with 
> 'capillary action' http://printwiki.org/Capillary_Action.
> 
> It's actually an *undesired* artefact of printing (at least from the 
> printer's point of view) and from my own experience was put down to 
> shoddy printing techniques, inappropriate paper, aging inks that are not 
> as viscous as they ought to be, poor roller pressure etc. and I guess 
> depending if it is intaglio or lithographic or good old fashioned 
> letterpress could be down to wear and tear of the plates being used over 
> and over.
> 
> I guess it's like those fonts that look like they are 'worn out'..
> 
> i.e. http://www.fontspace.com/category/worn
> 
> Personally I just think it looks like bad printing and has nothing 
> whatsoever to do with 'hand engraving' techniques - I cannot comment on 
> how music engravers make their plates and I would assume that banging 
> punches onto already engraved lines (the staff) might add some artifacts 
> where the punch breaks and cross the already-engraved lines, but I'd be 
> surprised.
> 
> James

James,

I like to think of it as an 'antique' rather than a 'worn' look. And, yes,
music engraving (when it really was engraved) generally follows the intaglio
route of printing. 

The precision that laser printers have just makes things a little too razor
sharp for me. If you like that, that's great! I'm not saying people who like
it are wrong and I'm right. 

It seems part of why Jazz musicians tend to prefer a Jazz notation and text
font because it has the page has the personality of human-interaction with
the music on the page. The 'bleeding' of the ink and the rounded glyphs, at
least to me, provide a hand-engraved personality to the page. It brings the
"human-factor" back into it. 

When I started creating my font, I felt like it would be a great compliment
to the more human-like, and less machine-like, engraving decisions that
LilyPond is designed to come up with.

And for the record, here's what happens when metal is punched, applicable to
any notehead, clef symbol, articulation, etc. that uses a punch (but not for
the features like staves, stems, slurs, which actually cut material away
from the plate):

<http://lilypond.1069038.n5.nabble.com/file/n161835/punching-metal.png> 

Notice that even in the top corner, it still gets a rounded edge because the
metal "flows" downwards with the punch, even if the punch is sharp. This
happens to the entire upper edge of the plate, inside or outside corner of a
glyph, using this technique. Even refinishing the top surface doesn't take
this out unless you take off a considerable amount of material, and even
then it probably won't. The ink capillary action merely accentuates the
rounding, including at the interfaces where punched features meet features
that were cut into the plate (like staff lines, beams, slurs, etc.). The cut
features *do* have a possibility of having sharp intersections, but not
punched ones.

That's all I'm gonna say about it. Thanks! I'm glad people are willing to at
least discuss it. Keep up the great work!

Regards,

Abraham





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