Style: Mono: discern shape of lowercase 'm'

[Paul Sladen]

So far the lowercase 'm' is proving the hardest general Latin character to squeeze into the Mono. A number of designs (eight to date) have been tried:

  http://design.canonical.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/11/Mono_mmmmm-1024x170.jpg

Feedback is welcomed about which styles might work in the long run, or even for more ideas on how to draw the 'm'.

[adoa (adoa)]

I like the ‘m’ next to last (not counting the ‘n’s) most, the one with the slightly thinner center stroke. The very fist one is o.k. as well. They are the ones most similar to the regular ‘m’. Are they not looking good for small font sizes? The problem about the hinting is the only one I see for not just using one of these.

In my optinion, all the other ‘m’s look too awkward. But that is highly subjective.

[Bruno Maag (bruno-daltonmaag)]

We're currently waiting for feedback from Mark and the Canonical team on the 'm'. We simply proposed a number of potential solutions to the 'm', some more creative than others, to illustrate the difficulty of putting a crowded character onto a fixed and narrow width.

I believe that the most conventional and conservative route is probably the best forward. Although it creates a bit of a spot effect it is least disruptive. When it comes to hinting we have to see how the glyph behaves at the smaller ppm sizes.

[Mark Shuttleworth (sabdfl)]

I'd like to see a variant with an even shorter middle stem!

[David Marshall (dave-daltonmaag)]

Don't worry about how they'll look when hinted - we can make them look
like anything when hinted. They're all likely to turn out very similar
at 9ppem, so it's really a question about style at higher resolutions.

Dave

[Paul Sladen (sladen)]

Mark: which of the shorter-stem variants do you prefer at this stage (to extrapolate with a range of stem length variants)? Amélie and I had a little play in the office on Tuesday with even shorter stem lengths, but didn't find an immediate sweet spot. If you've got a favourite(s) it would be easier to focus on a range of variants for those.

[Paul Sladen (sladen)]

Sample PDF on bug #677134 comment #21:

  https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu-font-family/+bug/677134/+attachment/1758664/+files/BugReport2010-12-07_B.pdf

[Paul Sladen (sladen)]

Ubuntu Beta Mono R17.

[Mark Shuttleworth (sabdfl)]

Am offline, reading old bugmail, didn't see a resolution on this, for me
it's fix-released.

Mark

[Paul Sladen (sladen)]

  ubuntu-font-family-sources (0.80-0ubuntu1~medium) oneiric; urgency=low

    * New upstream release 0.80 (LP: #854264)
      * Ubuntu (x8 weights)
      + Ubuntu Condensed (x1 weight)
      + Ubuntu Mono (x4 weights)

  -- Paul Sladen <email address hidden> Thu, 29 Sep 2011 18:20:36 +0100