Lingua dwells on the attraction designers have for ligatures and the new possibilities OpenType has created. When used without the ligatures, Lingua is a geometric typeface with strong angles and few sympathies. With the discretionary ligatures turned on, it transforms into a modern, nearly upright script.
Using Lingua
Lingua comes in two weights: light and regular. The weight difference between the two is visible but subtle and was designed so that the heavier weight could be used to offset ink spread in knockout or reversal situations. Although it wasn’t designed for such, it can also be used in a traditional complimentary relationship where one serves as “regular” and the other “bold”. Beginnings
First used as ornamentation by calligraphers and stone cutters
and later included within moveable types to avoid crashing
letter pairs, ligatures have always elicited a fascination
amongst typographers and designers alike. As if performing
a typographic magic trick, they seamlessly combine surprise,
utility and recognizability into a single character.
Our fascination with ligatures however hasn’t always
been a perfect friendship. Actually finding and using ligatures
outside of the traditional “fi” and “fl”
combinations has often proved difficult. Confusing key combinations
or finding the perfect word (“Aha!
‘Junction’ has the ‘ct’ ligature!”)
can sometimes seem like more trouble than it’s worth.
Keeping these considerations in mind, the nearly 200 ligatures
for Lingua were built around the most common letter pairs
within the English language. Once thought mundane letter combinations
like “th” and “an” can now be used alongside
their more traditional counterparts like “fi” and “fl”. As a result, the normally
reductive geometric forms of Lingua without ligatures can
be turned into a nearly upright script with the ligatures
turned on.
Since Lingua is an OpenType font, all of the ligatures and
special features are contained within a single cross-platform
file. All ligatures outside of “fi” and “fl”
are designed as Discretionary Ligatures allowing the user
to turn them on or off or select them individually through
the Insert Glyphs palette within InDesign.
The Collection Process
Two weeks of feature newspaper articles and one novel
were fed into the Ligature
Counter application built specifically for this project
by Justin Bakse. The resulting letter pair combos were
then averaged and used as the ligatures to be designed
and included in the Lingua fonts.
Accuracy?
The text fed into the Ligature Counter is only a snapshot
of the English language. Letter combinations from other
sources or languages will naturally return different results.
Curiously, the first 40 or so pairs are often identical
even with a range of sources including incomplete sentence
structures like those found in emails.
Additionally, the same letter pair combinations used for
the resulting lowercase ligatures were applied to the
uppercase/lowercase and uppercase ligatures. The actual
frequency of these uc/lc ligatures within a standard text
setting (often mostly lowercase) is rather low. Instead,
the combinations were included with the acknowledgment
that most users would not be setting books and newspapers
with Lingua (although you could!) but rather posters and
other display work that often feature caps and cap/lowercase
combinations.
The Raw Data
The Ligature Counter returns two pieces
of data for each letter pair. With the “th”
letter pair, 500 is the frequency of occurrence and 1.9%
is the corresponding percentage of occurrence within the
given text. The letter combinations below are those designed
and built into the Lingua fonts. The crossed out letter
pairs were not used as they didn’t seamlessly connect
and/or caused letter pair confusion.
lc
uc & lc
uc
th 500 1.9%
he 487 1.9%
in 358 1.4%
an 302 1.2%
er 291 1.1%
re 287 1.1%
on 262 1.0%
at 241 0.9%
en 226 0.9%
es 214 0.8%
ed 204 0.8%
te 198 0.8%
nd 189 0.7%
ar 187 0.7%
to 187 0.7%
ng 186 0.7%
st 181 0.7%
it 178 0.7%
or 173 0.7%
al 169 0.6%
is 167 0.6%
ti 162 0.6%
of 161 0.6%
ha 149 0.6%
nt 145 0.6%
le 140 0.5%
se 135 0.5%
ic 134 0.5%
ou 130 0.5% ro 125 0.5%
ta 124 0.5%
as 123 0.5%
de 123 0.5%
ea 123 0.5%
li 121 0.5%
ra 119 0.5%
il 118 0.5%
hi 115 0.4%
me 115 0.4%
ll 113 0.4%
io 107 0.4%
ve 104 0.4%
ut 100 0.4%
ne 98 0.4%
si 96 0.4%
om 92 0.4%
ri 92 0.4%
us 90 0.3%
id 89 0.3%
ce 88 0.3%
ai 83 0.3%
co 80 0.3%
wi 80 0.3%
ur 79 0.3%
be 77 0.3%
di 76 0.3%
un 76 0.3%
el 74 0.3%
et 74 0.3%
ts 74 0.3%
ca 73 0.3%
la 73 0.3%
ns 72 0.3%
ci 71 0.3%
ho 71 0.3%
no 68 0.3%
ec 67 0.3%
em 67 0.3%
fi 67 0.3%
ch 64 0.2%
fo 64 0.2%
ma 64 0.2%
ee 63 0.2%
ot 63 0.2%
pe 63 0.2%
we 62 0.2%
ge 61 0.2%
rt 61 0.2%
ia 60 0.2%
mi 60 0.2%
ni 60 0.2%
rs 60 0.2%
nc 59 0.2%
ow 59 0.2%
ac 57 0.2%
ol 57 0.2%
pr 57 0.2%
cu 56 0.2%
ss 56 0.2%
ad 55 0.2% sh 55 0.2%
mo 54 0.2%
wa 54 0.2%
ie 53 0.2%
po 52 0.2%
sa 52 0.2%
ir 51 0.2%
lo 51 0.2%
tr 51 0.2% wh 50 0.2%
ul 48 0.2% ly 47 0.2%
ld 44 0.2%
vi 44 0.2%
ay 42 0.2%
th 500 1.9%
he 487 1.9%
in 358 1.4%
an 302 1.2%
er 291 1.1%
re 287 1.1%
on 262 1.0%
at 241 0.9%
en 226 0.9%
es 214 0.8%
ed 204 0.8%
te 198 0.8%
nd 189 0.7%
ar 187 0.7%
to 187 0.7%
ng 186 0.7%
st 181 0.7%
it 178 0.7%
or 173 0.7%
al 169 0.6%
is 167 0.6%
ti 162 0.6%
of 161 0.6%
ha 149 0.6%
nt 145 0.6%
le 140 0.5%
se 135 0.5%
ic 134 0.5%
ou 130 0.5%
ro 125 0.5% ta 124 0.5%
as 123 0.5%
de 123 0.5%
ea 123 0.5% li 121 0.5%
ra 119 0.5% il 118 0.5%
hi 115 0.4%
me 115 0.4% ll 113 0.4%
io 107 0.4%
ve 104 0.4%
ut 100 0.4%
ne 98 0.4%
si 96 0.4%
om 92 0.4%
ri 92 0.4%
us 90 0.3% id 89 0.3%
ce 88 0.3%
ai 83 0.3%
co 80 0.3%
th 500 1.9%
he 487 1.9% in 358 1.4%
an 302 1.2%
er 291 1.1%
re 287 1.1%
on 262 1.0%
at 241 0.9%
en 226 0.9%
es 214 0.8%
ed 204 0.8%
te 198 0.8%
nd 189 0.7%
ar 187 0.7%
to 187 0.7%
ng 186 0.7%
st 181 0.7% it 178 0.7%
or 173 0.7%
al 169 0.6% is 167 0.6% ti 162 0.6%
of 161 0.6%
ha 149 0.6%
nt 145 0.6% le 140 0.5%
se 135 0.5% ic 134 0.5%
ou 130 0.5%
ro 125 0.5%
ta 124 0.5%
as 123 0.5%
de 123 0.5%
ea 123 0.5% li 121 0.5%
ra 119 0.5% il 118 0.5%
hi 115 0.4%
me 115 0.4% ll 113 0.4%
io 107 0.4%
ve 104 0.4%
ut 100 0.4%
ne 98 0.4%
si 96 0.4%
om 92 0.4%
ri 92 0.4%
us 90 0.3%
id 89 0.3%
ce 88 0.3%
ai 83 0.3%
co 80 0.3%
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