[XeTeX] A typography question

[Benct Philip Jonsson]

On 2009-08-03 David Perry wrote:
> Attempts to match different scripts usually don't work 
> very well.  I don't know much about Arabic, but Greek and
>  Latin are often printed together.  Type foundries in the
>  past tried to produce, e.g., Greek fonts that were based
>  on Times New Roman.  They didn't work well at all.  Each
>  script has its own organic forms and its own
> calligraphic and typographic traditions.  So I would
> experiment a bit and see what fonts look good together on
> a page in your layout.  I would probably not choose a
> very tall, narrow Roman font to put near Arabic which (to
> my eyes, anyway) seems to have a strongly horizontal,
> free flowing feel to it.  Beyond such basic
> considerations, go with what looks good and has the
> characters you need.
> 

The only two scripts where I'd like to have closely
matching styles are Latin and Cyrillic.  When it comes
to Latin + Greek I'd rather choose a Greek font which looks
good *as a Greek font* (and I still have to find one
I really like -- I'm a sucker for the kind of Greek
typography found in late 19th to early 20th century
text editions), but I'd go through some pains so that
the x-heights of the two fonts match.  Obviously
lower-case Latin o and lower-case Greek omicron are
good comparanda; I'd want them to look as of the
same size.

/BP 8^)>
-- 
Benct Philip Jonsson -- melroch atte melroch dotte se
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
  "C'est en vain que nos Josués littéraires crient
  à la langue de s'arrêter; les langues ni le soleil
  ne s'arrêtent plus. Le jour où elles se *fixent*,
  c'est qu'elles meurent."           (Victor Hugo)