Wesnoth font project

[Sgt. Groovy]

When making the Wesnoth logo and trying to find a suitable font for it, it became apparent that GPL-compatible fonts are a scarce resource. Most "free" fonts out there are actually "free for non-commercial use" and commercial fonts are difficult to distribute to all the contributors, should the Wesnoth project buy some. That's why I started doing a font from scratch for the logo.

Wesnoth already has original codebase, art, music and other content, so why not original fonts as well? It solves all the licensing issues and makes it easier for the artists to modify them for their specific use. If there are different fonts for different races, cultures and time periods, they can be used to create the atmosphere and indicate what languages are spoken (just think of all WWII comics where the Nazis are speaking in Fraktura ).

I'm not trying to pretend that creating quality fonts is trivial, but it's a skill, and like any other skill, it can be learned. A very good way to learn is just start doing it and put the results out there for feedback and criticism.

I have two different sets already in the works. The first is based on the Carolingian minuscule, here is a sample with some glyph alternatives and several ligatures:

The benefit of the Carolingian is that while it has a medieval look, it's also very easy on the modern eye, so it can be used for longer texts and in small size. There are no capitals yet, the Carolingian doesn't really have any specified style for them. There could be several different sets of capitals (Roman, uncial, insular etc. types) divided into more ornate initial capitals and simpler, inline ones.

The other set is the one used in the logo, again with several alternates for some glyphs. This one is more of a Blackletter type, but I have tried to keep it as simple and readable as possible:

There are also some capitals, but different types could also be used with this font:

[professor_max]

If you're doing founts, then you'll have to count me in
The only problem is that many languages use letters that we don't have in English. Also, you could have some unctials, which would look good.

[Sgt. Groovy]

I've started on the ascii set, but the idea is to keep adding characters so that the font satisfies the translation needs.

I might try and give a shot at uncial at some point (they could be used as capitals for the Carolingian), but what I would see as completing the "human set" of fonts would be a chancery hand, with swashes and all, that could be used as the map font.

[Heindal]

This font looks great! But, by the way - what about using system fonts. Especially "Calibri" is a font that can be used both for online and print. Even though it has no medieval flaire, it is a great font to use for manuals and should support UTC-8.

[Alarantalara]

This font looks great! But, by the way - what about using system fonts. Especially "Calibri" is a font that can be used both for online and print. Even though it has no medieval flaire, it is a great font to use for manuals and should support UTC-8.

System fonts are not consistent from system to system. For instance, there is no Calibri font on my computer. Also, I don't think Sgt. Groovy intended these fonts for a manual, but rather for in game text and images like maps.

[StandYourGround]

Did you even read the topic? This is about developing an original font for use in Wesnoth, not about changing the fonts for everything. Besides that, Calibri is not a free GPL font, and this topic is about creating a new GPL font. Read before you post next time, please.

EDIT: ninja'd

[Heindal]

The drawback of creating an own gpl font is that it does not support unicode.
Thats what I was trying to say, well I will stop posting now, "thank" you ...

[Sgt. Groovy]

There's no reason why a self-created font couldn't support UTF-8 encoding, or any other. As for language coverage, I already said that I will start with the ASCII set, and extend from there as the translation needs require.

[battlestar]

Some examples in words and sentences?

[Iris]

@Sgt. Groovy: any particular reason this isn’t in Art Contributions or Development? I know some of the relevant people don’t really pay attention to Workshop, if you are looking for advice or critique.

[Sgt. Groovy]

Probably because so far it has only been my own crazy idea, and not endorsed by any of the art devs. Feel free to move it, if you think it would be appropriate.

[Kess]

Great to see someone working on fonts!

I became curious about how many characters in which scripts Wesnoth uses... In case anyone else is curious:

Result from crude script run on SVN source, don’t rely on this being correct:

Basic Latin (0000–007F): 93
Latin-1 Supplement (0080–00FF): 75
Latin Extended-A (0100–017F): 86
Latin Extended-B (0180–024F): 6
Greek and Coptic (0370–03FF): 66
Cyrillic (0400–04FF): 80
Hebrew (0590–05FF): 27
Arabic (0600–06FF): 46
Devanagari (0900–097F): 54
Latin Extended Additional (1E00–1EFF): 69
General Punctuation (2000–206F): 5
Currency Symbols (20A0–20CF): 1
Box Drawing (2500–257F): 1
CJK Unified Ideographs (4E00–9FFF): 3679
Shavian (10450–1047F): 1

[ancestral]

Typophile is a great place to go for critique and help, frequented by type professionals and fanatics. I highly recommend it.