Community creates a textual font

[Schonbergian]

I agree on favouring Old Standard over Century Schoolbook.

[Schonbergian]

As another specimen that may be suitable (although one that would require digitization), I propose the lyrics font used by Carus in their choral publications through the 1980s and 1990s (the scan I have attached is from a 1997 score). It is condensed, of relatively high weight and low contrast, and I feel that it is well-designed and well-suited to music. Feel free to disagree--I present this only as another possibility.

BWV21-5.pdf

(796.43 KiB) Downloaded 871 times

[OCTO]

Shall we agree that Old Standard is a starting point?
Than, where to find a SIL license? Perhaps here: https://fontlibrary.org/en/font/old-standard ??
How to be sure that the license is valid?

[OCTO]

I have been searching for the person who made this version of Old Standard, his name is Alexey Kryukov.
From Wikipedia:

...is a Russian historian, teaching Latin and Ancient Greek at the Moscow State University. His greater field of study is Byzantine philosophy. Besides that he is known as the creator of several TrueType typefaces, resembling historical styles for the Greek, Cyrillic and Latin alphabets, among them Theano Didot, a revival of the Didot typeface of Firmin Didot.

By further search, I think that Theano Didot could be used beautifully for the lyrics, maybe with small modifications: https://www.fontsquirrel.com/fonts/theano-didot

p.s. Old Standard was done between 2008-2010 (!)

[Florian]

Shall we agree that Old Standard is a starting point?
Than, where to find a SIL license? Perhaps here: https://fontlibrary.org/en/font/old-standard ??
How to be sure that the license is valid?

I would agree. I've taken a closer look at Old Standard and I think now that it's an excellent starting point.
The OFL license is distributed with the font package.

Shall we create a github (or similar) repository for this project?

[OCTO]

I've taken a closer look at Old Standard and I think now that it's an excellent starting point.

Good. What other people think?

Shall we create a github (or similar) repository for this project?

I have a GitHub account, but I have never used it - I have no idea how it works.

[Florian]

I have a GitHub account, but I have never used it - I have no idea how it works.

I have one too, and I'm not quite sure how it works either. But I would offer to look into it and create that repository. Unless someone else is experienced with that kind of thing..?

[liuscorne]

By further search, I think that Theano Didot could be used beautifully for the lyrics, maybe with small modifications:

Didone typefaces are certainly a popular choice for some music publishers. Henle is a good example, they use Bauer Bodoni for body text, titles etc. But I'm not sure if I've ever seen such a typeface used for lyrics, and maybe for good reason: rather wide letter spacing, small x-hight, strong contrast between stems and hairlines - it doesn't seem particularly suited for lyrics.
Scotch Roman typefaces, which developed out of the Didone style, share some of the characteristics, but they developed into a much more robust typeface. So even if some of the digital versions of Scotch Roman typefaces (like Old Standard) don't seem suited for lyrics at the moment, they can be modified in such a way, without loosing their overall characteristics.

[odod]

I have a GitHub account, but I have never used it - I have no idea how it works.

I have one too, and I'm not quite sure how it works either. But I would offer to look into it and create that repository. Unless someone else is experienced with that kind of thing..?

i think tisimst aka Abraham Lee is the most experienced ...

[OCTO]

I have edited Old Standard, easy emboldened. Let me know what you think.