Comment 92 for bug 650498

What makes it difficult to design weights, italics and monospace versions, Paul, is that we haven’t decided which construction principle is the best for the Ubuntu font. Of course we can make a great amount of graphical suggestions but I think that won’t make the decision easier but more difficult.

So in my opinion we should first decide which ẞ-form to use (or at least limit the choice). This decision shouldn’t be mainly made out of personal preferences, but of some technical, practical and aesthetical reasons. I collected some of them already in my comment #59 (mach reduced them in #62, but I think we mean the same).

Is it okay for you, that we first decide the form of the Ubuntu-ẞ after the following conditions?

1) The ẞ must be clearly identifiable as a capital sharp S, it must not be mistaken for a B.
2) The ẞ must fit into the other capital letters and reflect the design of the whole Ubuntu font.
3) The ẞ must work in small sizes [and longer texts], too.

Is that enough to decide the construction principle? Are there other conditions which should be considered?

At least the first condition is in my opinion difficult to achive with the B-form. I also doubt that the Leipzig form is practical in small sizes and bold weights (dark spot at the top right corner).

If we determined the construction prinicple then we can decide the details (cut off the top right corner? How open shall be the bottom aperture? etc.). Or do you think we should wait for more design suggestions?

Now some personal thoughts (which can be considered but are no hard facts for or against a certain ẞ-form):

The Zehlendorfer form is in my opinion a little weak. The vague swash of the right part doesn’t fit to the concise character of the most capital letters. – But that could be habituality.
The Ubuntu letters aren’t geometrically constructed but have slight bendings of almost all straight lines. So the Dresden form with a corner on the top left may be to severe.
My personal preference is the Dresden form without corner because it has a distinctive tip in the middle which helps to recognise the letter fastly and fills the very empty space the Zehlendorfer form has.

[I’m very happy that we finally begin to do some work and don’t have to discuss anymore if ß is a ligature, if it comes from ſs or ſz, if anybody needs the ẞ anyway, if the Swiss people have the better orthography or if filling the unicode spot with SS wouldn’t be the better solution. That was sometimes very frustrating.]