Language support is one of the most important aspects of a font, together with the look and feel as well as the technical state & performance of course. You do not only want to know if a font supports a certain language, but also if it looks any good in that language. Those two can vary quite a lot.

After years of researching and improving our own character set with its accompanying language support, we are happy to reveal Latin Plus today. Well documented, pairing diacritics to languages, translated sample texts and offering the possibility to explore which of the Latin Plus languages are supported by the fonts on your computer.

Welcome to Latin Plus.

It’s been nice to see our fonts being used across the internet since we started selling webfonts some years ago. Our self-hostable webfonts are finding their ways from the happy medium up to the corners of the web. Meanwhile we are developing more tools to let you customize webfonts in a way which fits best to each specific occasion. Our recent library upgrade already reckoned with more of such possibilities. Eventually these tools will become automatically available in your account.

Underware Is Now on Webtype
While some prefer self-hosted webfonts, others might prefer a hosted service. Those people will be happy to hear that this is reality as of today. A hosted service also paves the way for easy accessible free trials, for testing the real font files in a real-life environment in your upcoming project. Therefore we are pleased to now offer hosted webfonts through Webtype.

Now. You are a typographer and do your best to achieve ultimate precision in details. You want to set a text in Dutch, as good as possible. You need to master the curious case of IJ.

The Dutch IJ

There is a difference between typesetting Dutch and other languages regarding the ij. In Dutch the ij is a digraph, or – if you prefer – a ligature. We don’t care how you call it, as long as you consider the IJ as one letter. So in case you set a text vertically, you’ll have to put the I and the J on the same line.

This Dutch IJ might require a special design, depending on the design of the font. Most roman sans serif fonts can live with a regular ‘I’ and ‘J’ combination. Although not always perfect, that’s quite often acceptable. But in swashy fonts the need for a specially designed ‘IJ’ is obvious. A swashy I followed by a swashy J is a nightmare for the Dutch IJ. It needs a special glyph included in the font. And please remember to select the right language for your text, as these IJ’s only (should) show up in Dutch texts.

The missing dot

Okay, the ij is cleared. From now on you only work with fonts which have a special glyph for IJ and ij. But then the trouble starts in lowercase. Because fi-ligatures often remove the dot on i, the ij does not look like ij anymore in Dutch. In case the lowercase ij shouldn’t look like a handicapped, amputated lunatic, it needs two dots. To be able to have a nice f+i connection as well as two dots on the ij, you’ll need an additional ligature in your fonts: f+ij

Because some people love to cook their own words, an additional bonus ligature could be included to make sure any imaginable Dutch word looks perfect: f+f+ij

Oh, oh. Exceptions

However, not every i+j in Dutch should become ij. There are some Dutch words which would have their hyphenation in the middle of i and j. There is currently not a beautiful solution for this, so all official exceptions have to be hard coded in the OpenType code of the font.

IJ-acute

In case you want to stress a word, both letters of ij need an acute. Although one cannot enter a j-acute on a keyboard, the typeface should automatically create both acutes once an i-acute is followed by a j. This should of course only happen in Dutch. So make sure you’ve got your text set to the correct language, and you will have the ij-acute in your Dutch texts.

Our recent library update takes all these Dutch sensitivities into account, making all our fonts suitable for precise Dutch typesetting. All goes automatically, you don’t have to think about all this. Which means you can forget everything you just read.

If you don’t consider fonts chuck aways, and still want to use them after the weekend, you’ll be delighted that we continuously keep on improving all our fonts. Today we released an update for our complete library.

If you work for a longer period with our fonts, you get to know their possibilities better. Meanwhile know that we keep on improving (y)our fonts, because those fonts are valuable part of your work.

Most notable changes of this update:

• Improved language support for Dutch. All fonts now contain ijacute. Although you cannot enter this character on your keyboard, it will appear automatically once you type í (iacute) & j in a Dutch text. Additionally we added an f+ij as well as an f+f+ij ligature to all fonts, bringing back that missing dot for the ij, just to make sure your Dutch words always look piekfijn (spiffing).

• Small refinements for Turkish languages (Azerbaijani, Bashkir (Latin), Gagauz (Latin), Karakalpak (Latin), Turkish & Zazaki) for fonts with build in small caps.

• More under the bonnet improvements, offering new possibilities for type online.

• Sauna & Sauna Mono fonts got additional figure styles.

• Expanded language support for Liza. All our fonts support 219 Latin languages now. Liza has always been loaded to the max with glyphs and code, and we had a hard time to expand the language support due to this. Finally you can also set text in Bemba, Maasai or Welsh with our sexy and intelligent Liza Pro. In case you are curious, Liza now also support 18 additional languages: Atayal, Azerbaijani, Bashkir (Latin), Bemba, Chichewa, Ganda, Gikuyu, Greenlandic (Kalaallisut), Igbo, Kaingang, Maasai, Rotuman, Sami (Inari Sami), Sami (Northern Sami), Welsh, Wolof, Zarma & Zazaki. This means all our fonts now have the same extensive Latin Plus language support.

Stay Pro, and update to version 2.5. Existing licensees can download the latest versions (for free) in their account. If you have any question about this update, mail info@underware.nl

Two weeks ago we opened a small world cup quiz, when we released Tripper Tricolor. It may be no surprise that most participants were wrong to completely wrong. However. However. One person predicted the final outcome correctly. Just one person? Yes, just one person. We’re trying to get in touch with him. Hopefully he provided his correct email address. Until that time we call him Jeremy the Oracle. Jeremy, you are amazing. Come, and pick up your prize.

Last week we opened a world cup quiz for some days. Here is the combined prediction of all participants. Up to now the majority is correct. Winners of the quiz will be informed next week after the final. Fingers crossed.

Tripper Tricolor is our latest font release. A multi-colored, rock steady display font. With Tripper Tricolor all patriots can set texts in their national colors, and the rest of the world can set it in any other colors they prefer. Tripper Tricolor is easy to use and works nicely across the world wide web, as well as with your desktop apps.

Try it yoursef at underware.nl/fonts/tripper_tricolor

The World Cup Quiz

You can even win this font for free. Predict the best 3 countries of the World Cup in the World Cup Quiz. A piece of cake now that there are just a couple of teams left. Note that you can only join the quiz until 03 July 2014, only 2 days from now. Hurry up and good luck.

Our custom font family Stockmann Sans is currently on show at the Päivälehti Newspaper Museum in Helsinki, Finland. The exhibition is called “Tunnetko tyypin? Kirjaintyyppien merkillinen maailma”. In case you don’t speak Finnish: it means something like Do you know type? If not, don’t worry because letters are an even stranger world than Finland itself. Only Fins can come up with a title like this. Of course. This educational exhibition makes type design accessible for a broad audience, and features some creations of contemporary Finnish type designers like Hanna Hakala, Saku Heinänen, Jarno Lukkarila and our good own Sami Kortemäki.

The exhibition runs until the 31st of August 2014 at Päivälehti Newspaper Museum, Ludviginkatu 2-4, Helsinki, Finland.

Three weights, geometric sans, elegant italics, Latin & Cyrillics, from shop windows to price tags to coffee cups, from Helsinki to Moscow. Please meet Stockmann Sans, a custom font family by Underware for Scandinavia’s largest department store:

underware.nl/custom_type/stockmann/

(more…)

During the last couple of weeks we gave the Poles a hard time. We’ve been teasing them a little during our Wo-Wo Polski? Tour. That tour ended yesterday, so now we have to make it up again with our Polish friends. Therefore we have an über-unique offer: Mistrzowie caps! Poles know that it means “Champions”, and also know that Poland never has been a champion with anything. Therefore these caps are already collectors items, never seen before. Wear them, impress your friends and be prepared in case Poland ever wins something in the future. Polish colours, polish style. Alles geben, cause one day it might happen: Poland wins.

Every font order from Poland receives 2 free caps, so you can celebrate together with your friend (as long as stock lasts)

(more…)