[OpenFontLibrary] Herculanum (was Re: Papyrus)

[Chris Lilley]

Hello Pablo,

Saturday, October 19, 2013, 7:02:47 AM, Pablo Impallari wrote:

> Adobe, a long time ago, has issued a nicely designed promotional
> specimen of Trajan, Papirus and and third one, Herculanum or Lithos,
> if my memory is not failing me. The 3 typefaces where described as
> an "Collection of ancient revivals" or something similar... 
 
Out of curiosity I looked up Herculanum (and indeed it is spelled like
that, not Herculaneum like the famous town).

Adobe describes it  thus:

  Named for Pompeii’s sister city, Herculanum was designed by Adrian
  Frutiger in 1990 for Linotype’s Type before Gutenberg series. The
  typeface is based on first-century Roman letterforms cursive that
  were quickly written in clay using a stylus. Frutiger’s design mixes
  letterforms that are very narrow and very wide; combined with its
  simple, elemental shapes, Herculanum is one of the most expressive
  and individual display faces in the Adobe Type Showroom.

http://store1.adobe.com/cfusion/store/html/index.cfm?store=OLS-US&event=displayFont&code=HRCQ10005000

and sells it for USD 29, although the 5-seat license appears to be
solely for print publications.

The design is very much an 'inspired by' rather than an accurate
reconstruction of a first century Latin cursive; and while accented
letters and a few ligatures have been added suitable for modern
Latin-script languages, the ligatures and alternate forms used in
latin cursive have not been attempted. A pity.

Or, a gap in the market which a Libre font could fill.

-- 
Best regards,
 Chris                            mailto:chris at w3.org