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Why I decided to remove Chomsky's kerning

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Fredrick Brennan edited this page Jan 6, 2020 · 3 revisions

Chomsky, before version 1.3 (6 January 2020), had very advanced GPOS kerning, based on classes and context, not all of which was representable in the legacy kern table.

I removed all of this kerning. Version 1.3 has not one kern.

Why?

Despite how much kerning I had added, Chomsky's spacing still never looked quite “right” to me. It turns out that understanding font formats and OpenType is no substitute for real type design experience.

I realized that spacing is actually very important; having kerns without having given any regard to the left and right bearings is like building a house without a foundation.

I might add some kerns in future, but this time we'll have a good foundation. Finally, Chomsky's spacing looks right to me. 🥳

out Top line is new spacing.

Thanks to David Crossland for his advice on spacing methods.

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