Flashback to almost exactly a year ago.
We released Ten Mincho (貂明朝) Version 1.000 during MAX Japan 2017, and I published this marten-laced article that provided technical details about its fonts. Now, a year later, and during MAX Japan 2018, we have released Version 2.003 of this cute and mischievous typeface family. Please continue to read if you have interest in details about the new and updated fonts that are included as part of this Japanese typeface family.
SVG Glyphs
Unfortunately, we were unable to ship Ten Mincho Version 1.000 with an SVG (Scalable Vector Graphics) table. The Version 1.000 fonts were to include 14 SVG glyphs, and I am very pleased to state that its typeface designer, Ryoko Nishizuka (西塚涼子), designed 18 additional SVG glyphs, which we have added to the Version 2.003 fonts. Among the additional SVG glyphs are ones that correspond to the 12 animals of the zodiac (干支 eto). In other words, there are now 32 SVG glyphs. Below is artwork that I created using the latest Ten Mincho fonts:
The animated image below shows the SVG glyphs, along with their Black&White (aka CFF table) versions. The first line includes the 14 that we intended to include in the Version 1.000 fonts, though their Black&White versions were included. Note that some of the SVG glyphs are not directly encoded, and are necessarily accessible as alternates of other characters, and that some of them, such as U+1F415 🐕 and U+1F408 🐈, include alternate forms:
Although the glyphs that correspond to the 12 animals of the zodiac are directly encoded from U+1F400 🐀, U+1F402 🐂, U+1F405 🐅, U+1F407 🐇, U+1F409 🐉, U+1F40D 🐍, U+1F40E 🐎, U+1F411 🐑, U+1F412 🐒, U+1F413 🐓, U+1F415 🐕, and U+1F417 🐗, they are also accessible as alternates of the appropriate zodiac or animal kanji:
- U+5B50 子, U+4E11 丑, U+5BC5 寅, U+536F 卯, U+8FB0 辰, U+5DF3 巳, U+5348 午, U+672A 未, U+7533 申, U+9149 酉, U+620C 戌 & U+4EA5 亥
- U+9F20 鼠, U+725B 牛, U+864E 虎, U+514E 兎, U+9F8D 龍 (or U+7ADC 竜), U+86C7 蛇, U+99AC 馬, U+7F8A 羊, U+733F 猿, U+9D8F 鶏, U+72AC 犬 & U+732A 猪
U+1F408 🐈 is also accessible as an alternate of U+732B 猫.
Ten Mincho Text
Ten Mincho Version 1.000 included two faces, Regular and Italic, and its unreleased OpenType/CFF Collection therefore included only two fonts. Version 2.003 introduces an additional style, named Ten Mincho Text (貂明朝テキスト), which also includes two faces, Regular and Italic. The Version 2.003 OpenType/CFF Collection, which we intend to make available to those who purchase a perpetual license for all four fonts through Fontspring, now includes four fonts, but is barely larger than the two-font Version 1.000 one, mainly due to all four fonts sharing the same CFF table.
Ten Mincho and Ten Mincho Text differ only in the glyphs for kana and related characters, which are less stylized in Ten Mincho Text, and therefore more suitable for longer texts. The animated image below contrasts the glyphs that differ between Ten Mincho and Ten Mincho Text, shown in Unicode order:
Although not shown in the image above, the ruby glyphs also differ between Ten Mincho and Ten Mincho Text. The total number of glyphs that differ is 434.
Additional Details
Speaking of Unicode, the Unicode-based glyph synopsis PDF was updated, not only to include 20 additional mappings, but also to include the Regular and Italic faces of Ten Mincho Text. It is now 436 pages. The CID-based glyph synopsis PDF was also updated.
About the 20 additional mappings, most of them are due to the glyphs for new emoji, along with glyphs for U+2661 ♡ WHITE HEART SUIT, U+2662 ♢ WHITE DIAMOND SUIT, U+2664 ♤ WHITE SPADE SUIT, and U+2667 ♧ WHITE CLUB SUIT that do not require SVG (color) glyphs. Two of the new mappings are for U+0385 GREEK DIALYTIKA TONOS and U+1FED GREEK DIALYTIKA AND VARIA. Can anyone tell me why I added these two mappings?
Although the ordering of the glyphs was changed between Versions 1.000 and 2.003, document compatibility should be preserved for the most part, mainly due to most glyphs being directly encoded, or that unencoded glyphs are associated with the same code point via an OpenType GSUB features. There is a known issue that affects the use of the four unencoded (and Black&White, because the Version 1.000 fonts did not include an SVG table) “marten” glyphs that are alternates of the kanji U+8C82 貂, and this help page describes the situation.
Comments