Berling reborn in OT format

[ktinkel]

This month’s LinoLetter (http://www.linotype.com/2708/berlingnova.html?PHPSESSID=9a5edc81dc4d2eb3602a34b c07930a2d) features a new cut of Berling, dubbed Berling Nova — Sweden’s most famous and enduring typeface, designed in the 1950s by Karl-Erik Forsberg.

I have always liked Berling, and used it eons ago for a small job, a series of pamphlets. With this version Linotype says it has revised the font slightly, making it look more like the original metal version, and has added a display roman and italic. It is an OpenType family with six fonts, $35 U.S. each.

Berling is a decent book face, could work in magazines and in ads. It is very readable and has a fresh look, partly because it is so rarely used, partly because of its open design.

I have no idea what the entire family costs because the Linotype web site is so badly designed that I cannot find it. :eek: But there is probably some discount for the entire family.

[iamback]

I have always liked Berling, and used it eons ago for a small job, a series of pamphlets. With this version Linotype says it has revised the font slightly, making it look more like the original metal version, and has added a display roman and italic. It is an OpenType family with six fonts, $35 U.S. each.

(...)

I have no idea what the entire family costs because the Linotype web site is so badly designed that I cannot find it. :eek: But there is probably some discount for the entire family.Six? I find only four, and no package deal: http://www.linotype.com/133/berling-family.html

Looking at the samples I don't particularly like it though.

[Michael Rowley]

KT:

I have always liked Berling

I like Berling Nova very much (possibly because you don't find anything but stumpy ascenders). I couldn't make out the price for the set either, having only just received the Linotype letter, but I suspect you have to travel a bit more along the 'purchase' road to find out.

One thing: they say the typeface is in six 'weights': actually, the only weights it's got (not counting the display face) is two, regular and bold; the other 'weights' are of the italic face. Thomas Phineas commented on the use of the description 'weight' a couple of months ago (in his blog).

[ktinkel]

Six? I find only four, and no package deal: http://www.linotype.com/133/berling-family.htmlThat would be the older family. Berling Nova has six members, and is slightly different.

[Michael Rowley]

KT:

Berling Nova has six members, and is slightly different

Apart from being updated, the Berling Nova has not only the regular and bold (and the equivalent italics), but also a very refined display weight, in roman & italic. I wonder from what size the display is recommended: can you give us an idea of it?

[ktinkel]

Apart from being updated, the Berling Nova has not only the regular and bold (and the equivalent italics), but also a very refined display weight, in roman & italic. I wonder from what size the display is recommended: can you give us an idea of it?Since I have not used the fonts, I cannot say for sure. But any size much above the teens — 14 point, 18 point, somewhere in there — is where I would look for a difference.

[Gerry Kowarsky]

What do you think of Berling's exclamation point? It's a bit too jaunty for my taste.

[donmcc]

True, but the Phinney blog, if I recall correctly, never came up with a definitive term that we could use in place of weights when referring to the members of a typeface. There are so many technically incorrect terms in typography from font, to point, to ??? that I am not bothered by the use of weight to include italics and obliques.

[ktinkel]

What do you think of Berling's exclamation point? It's a bit too jaunty for my taste.Maybe it is designed that way to discourage its use! :rolleyes:

It is jaunty, as you put it. The italic is identical, just canted over a bit. It looks that way in my old Adobe Berling, so it wasn’t added to the new Nova version. (There is a visible difference in weight in the two faces, however.)

The Berling exclamation point reminds me of the standard g in Galliard italic (though there is an alternate for that, much more “normal” looking).

Attaching a couple of small images, so everyone will know what we are muttering about.

[ktinkel]

One thing: they say the typeface is in six 'weights': actually, the only weights it's got (not counting the display face) is two, regular and bold; the other 'weights' are of the italic face.I’m not sure why, but referring to the members of a type family as weights has been common usage for a long time. When I was learning about type, I asked several typographers and type designers about it, and they all, essentially, just shrugged.

Using style instead of weight is possible, though that too is not quite right.

[Michael Rowley]

KT:

But any size much above the teens — 14 point, 18 point, somewhere in there

Thanks for that: in other words, the usual range. From the few typefaces I've got that provide a separate display size, I would have judged the much more delicate display Berling Nova to have been designed with larger sizes in mind (perhaps 30 pt and upwards), but my eye doesn't judge very well!

[ktinkel]

Thanks for that: in other words, the usual range. From the few typefaces I've got that provide a separate display size, I would have judged the much more delicate display Berling Nova to have been designed with larger sizes in mind (perhaps 30 pt and upwards), but my eye doesn't judge very well!I do not know what size “model” Linotype used for the Display size. (I assume they based the text on 12 point, which seems to be an industry standard — even though very little type is set in that size!)

For the Display they have to assume that some people will set it in gigantic sizes (seems to be all the rage in magazines lately — 250 point (or even larger) letters as drop caps or for the opening of an article). But no one can draw letters that are beautiful over such a huge range, and most users will stick to more moderate sizes, so that is probably where they work.

They would need a poster size to accommodate those huge sizes. (But I think it would be more useful to supply a tiny size for footnote references and other uses, but I guess that would be very deluxe.)

It is always interesting to set type in a font in various sizes, trying to find its “sweet spot.”

[Michael Rowley]

KT:

Minion Pro Opticals has the sizes as follows:

Caption: 6–8.4 point
Regular: 8.5–13.0 point
Subhead: 13.–19.9 point
Display: 20+ point

Stone's Cycles has six sizes from 7 pt upwards. The difference between the weights is striking, but does not seem as extreme as in Berling Nova, but perhaps that's usual when there is only one 'display' weight and one 'text' weight.

[iamback]

That would be the older family. Berling Nova has six members, and is slightly different.Well, I searched for Berling - you didn't mention "Berling Nova" - maybe it's in that whatever-it-is page you linked to but I didn't go off and read that... :(

Oops, They're a lot more expensive, too (http://www.linotype.com/116522/berlingnova-family.html) - and still no package deal in sight. And a major change in the numerals, particluarly the 1 - it looks like a smallcaps I now (except in the italics). Yuk. The older Berling was better, and I don't even like that much.

[ktinkel]

And a major change in the numerals, particluarly the 1 - it looks like a smallcaps I now (except in the italics). Yuk. The older Berling was better, and I don't even like that much.Actually, oldstyle figures (aka non-lining or hanging figures, the ones that work like lowercase characters — the ones you don’t like) are the standard form in oldstyle typefaces like this one (and Garamond, et al). In the 19th century (sometimes referred to as the Dark Ages of typography), some wiseguy (or maybe it was some consensus!) decided that lining or ranging (aka caps-style) figures worked better, and as a rule fonts have shipped with those as standard through most of the intervening century and a half.

OpenType provides for both, and then some. Berling Nova has:


lining figures w/proportional widths
oldstyle figures w/proportional widths
small caps lining figures w/proportional widths
lining figures w/fixed widths (what you prefer)
oldstyle figures w/fixed widths
(The last two are convenient for tables as they align without effort.)

If you were to buy the regular Berling Nova font, I believe you would get the lining figures you prefer. You would have to exert yourself (and pay extra!) to get oldstyle figures.

This variety of forms, a lot of extra characters to support many different languages, and other extra stuff are what makes the fonts so large, and arguably, so expensive. (Or maybe the price reflects the hope that typographers, who do need some of these extras, will pay to get them.)

Oldstyle figures work much better than lining figures in text. The latter look like strings of caps, which is generally ugly. (Of course, one could argue — and I usually do — that figures have very little place in text. But that is seriously old-fashioned these days, even though it is still right!)

Sorry about omitting the Nova; I will go fix that in the first message so no one else gets stung.

[Michael Rowley]

Marjolein:

And a major change in the numerals, particluarly the 1 - it looks like a smallcaps I

The arabic numeral 1 shown for Berling Nova is an OS numeral; like nearly all OS 1s, it looks very much like an I. The 1 in Berling is a lining numeral. But since Berling Nova is OT (and hence dearer that the old PS or TT Berling), I presume it has both OS and lining numerals, which you can choose from if you have the appropriate program.

*Georgia though hasn't got the conventional '1', although the numerals are OS.

[Michael Rowley]

KT:

Sorry about omitting the Nova

You didn't: in your first message you said that the typeface was 'dubbed Berling Nova'. 'Dubbed' seems OK, but I should have drawn the line at 'yclept'. (There's that ersatz 'y' again!)

[ktinkel]

You didn't: in your first message you said that the typeface was 'dubbed Berling Nova'. 'Dubbed' seems OK, but I should have drawn the line at 'yclept'. (There's that ersatz 'y' again!)Nope. I just added that a few minutes ago.

Actually, if I had thought about it, I might have written “yclept.” It has a lot of charm!

[Michael Rowley]

KT:

I just added that a few minutes ago

I should have looked at the 'edited by' note! (Always read the small print.)

Yclept turns out to be the eventual version of OE 'gecleopod'; I agree with you that 'yclept' is nicer, but dubbed is not bad, if the use of it is permissible in a sternly republican society.

[iamback]

The arabic numeral 1 shown for Berling Nova is an OS numeral; like nearly all OS 1s, it looks very much like an I. The 1 in Berling is a lining numeral. But since Berling Nova is OT (and hence dearer that the old PS or TT Berling), I presume it has both OS and lining numerals, which you can choose from if you have the appropriate program.Well, I knew about the "smallcaps" 1 being old style - I have plenty of old books that use such numbers, so I immediately associated it with "old fashioned".

What I didn't know is that you could get a choice of styles within the same font. Thanks (Kathleen, too!) for that explanation.

But not knowing that, comparing the samples on the site is certainly confusing! :(

*Georgia though hasn't got the conventional '1', although the numerals are OS.I know it doesn't have that odd 1 - if it did I probably wouldn't use it for all headlines in my travel blog, which have a lot of numerals, with the dates in them! I like Georgia's numerals.

[ktinkel]

. . . if the use of it is permissible in a sternly republican society.Gaaack. I guess the small ‘r’ redeems you! <g> Else I have no comment, except to say that I don’t live in such a place. I bide my time.

[Michael Rowley]

KT:

I was using 'republican' in the Roman sense! I don't think either Democrats or Republicans advocate conferring knighthoods, which is what is done when someone is 'dubbed'. I don't know though what their attitude is to honorary knighthoods, which the British monarch occasionally confers on American citizens (I don't know though whether there are any honorarary Dames; I suppose their ought to be).

[Michael Rowley]

Marjolein:

What I didn't know is that you could get a choice of styles within the same font

An OT font can have two or many more glyphs with the same codepoint, so you can select one if there is a choice and if you are using an application that appreciates that, such as InDesign. However, Adobe, and possibly other font makers usually provides duplicates in the Private Use Area (for instance, the various alternative arabic numerals), so that people using other applications (such as Word 2000 or PagePlus 11) can get at them if they know the appropriate code points, which can found in Windows with Character Map. They can be entered from the keyboard or using a VBA macro (e.g. Word).

I have a macro for Word, and can substitute a small capital, an old-style numeral, or a ligature for the 'ordinary' glyphs, but because I don't know VBA I can't develop it so that it automatically works on groups of glyphs, such as 1984.

[donmcc]

My bet is that it was the Linotype that caused the shift to lining figures. OS would be possible on those machines, but somehow I feel that the limited slots for characters would have meant a choice of one set of figures or the other, and lining getting chosen.

[ktinkel]

I don't think either Democrats or Republicans advocate conferring knighthoods, which is what is done when someone is 'dubbed'. Dubbing also means to assign a casual name, nickname or catch-phrase to something (or someone). No shoulder tap required.

Now what that has to do with dubbing in the sense of replacing a voice or sound track on a film, I do not know.

[ktinkel]

My bet is that it was the Linotype that caused the shift to lining figures. OS would be possible on those machines, but somehow I feel that the limited slots for characters would have meant a choice of one set of figures or the other, and lining getting chosen.I think it was a change in typographic philosophy, beginning a bit before the Linotype took hold. I can’t find the copy of the Inland Printer from the mid-to-late 1900s in which an editorial rails against oldstyle type and figures, declaring that modern times need modern type. (Too bad, as its passion was interesting — the writer might have been talking about war or something really serious.)

But I did find a passage in De Vinne’s Plain Printing Types (1900) that states the case. He was still writing mostly about foundry type:Arabic figures have been changed more than any other characters of the font. Some of the forms made by the early printers cannot be deciphered by an unschooled reader. Their oriental irregularities were gradually reduced to a reasonable degree of uniformity, so that the old-style figures made by all founders of the eighteenth century differed but little as to form, and were never misleading or uncertain.

Each figure had a distinct form and definite position: the 1, 2, and 0 were the short characters, occupying the middle of the line; the 6 and 8 were ascending, and the 3, 4, 5, 7, and 9 descending characters.

In a text of lower-case, or in a large table of figures, one figure could rarely be mistaken for another, even when the figures were worn and bruised. That irregularity of form which makes figures distinct in a text of lower-case is a positive defect when they are put in a mass of even-lined roman capitals. In this position the old-style 1, 2, and 0 are too small: they look like wrong fonts. Perception of this defect prompted the designers of modern-cut letter to make all figures of the same height, and put them in line. This innovation has been accepted as an improvement which will probably endure.

[Note: The figures in the middle paragraph of that passage are in Georgia, bumped up a size for visibility; if you have the version of that font with the oldstyle figures — some have 3/4-height lining figures — you should see more or less what De Vinne shows in the book, except that he shows the perfectly round monoline zero. I made the paragraphs, too; this was all one in the book.]
I really do think that lining figures were seen as sleek, simple, and modern, and that type was being set that way long before the Linotype was able to have great influence on typographic style.

[Michael Rowley]

KT:

Dubbing also means to assign a casual name . . .

Oh I know that, but the first meaning in our dictionaries refers to knighthood, and the word itself if from Old French, meaning to 'armour'.

The other word, meaning to provide a separate sound track, comes from 'double'.

[Michael Rowley]

KT:

I can't remember the date, but 'modern face' numerals, all the same height, were introduced for tables by Hutton in the late eighteenth century. Later, De Morgan demonstrated (how?) the superior legibility of the old style numerals, and most for most tables the old style is preferred.

(Those notes are after Comrie, who was writing in 1949; Comrie was the editor of Chambers mathematical tables.)

[Gerry Kowarsky]

[The exclamation point] looks that way in my old Adobe Berling, so it wasn’t added to the new Nova version.
Right. I first saw the Berling exclamation point in the pre-Nova version that comes with Microsoft's eBook Reader.

The Berling exclamation point reminds me of the standard g in Galliard italic
That's a good comparison. In both cases, the unusual design of the character slows me down when I am reading.

[ktinkel]

but the first meaning in our dictionaries refers to knighthoodAnd the first meaning in [at least one of] ours is “give an unofficial name or nickname to (someone or something).” Then it talks about knights.

[Michael Rowley]

Gerry:

the unusual design of the character slows me down when I am reading

It is not unlikely that Berling Nova, being an OT, font, has an alternative exclamation mark, just as the Galliard italic has an alternative g. That's one of the advantages of OT fonts. Personally, I find the conventional exclamation mark illogical, probably because it is a Johny-come-late among the punctuation marks and doesn't even pretend to be made with a pen.