Typography

Member lesson

Multiscript typesetting

Lesson 30 of 34 in Typography.

Multilingual and Multiscript Book Design (John D. Berry)​ · SILICON
Lesson

Setting two scripts together is not a matter of finding two typefaces with a similar feeling. Scripts have different apparent sizes, different vertical proportions and different densities, so equal point sizes almost never look equal.

latinbaseline sitsunderdevanagarihangs from theshirorekhaarabicruns along thebaseline, right tolefta shared baseline is a Latin assumption
Latin, Devanagari and Arabic aligned to different reference lines.
Two lines of invented script pairs, the upper one uneven in size and darkness with a cross and the lower one evenly matched with a tick.
Two scripts set at the same size look mismatched; nudged in size and weight, they read as one line. Match different scripts by eye, not by the numbers.
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  1. Question 1, locked

    Which of these words means this? “Making two scripts look like they belong together without making either wrong.”

    • Lineal
    • Script harmonisation
    • Didone
    • Vox-ATypI
  2. Question 2, locked

    Which of these words means this? “Where a script sits relative to the baseline. Rarely agrees between scripts.”

    • Structural contrast
    • Vertical metrics
    • Superfamily
    • Entry point
  3. Question 3, locked

    Which of these words means this? “Mixing right-to-left and left-to-right in one line.”

    • Bidirectional text
    • Matra
    • Shirorekha
    • Pageview

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