Cyrillic. OPSZ 5, UPRIGHT *new observations

[vikagrabowska]

Earlier I have published some observations on OPSZ 5 Basic Cyrillic lowercase and uppercase letters. These are new observations found in various languages and in small caps which I haven't reviewed before.

Basic Cyrillic SMCP

• п (smcp) - seem to be a little wide compared to н (smcp).
• ц (smcp) - seem to be a little wide compared to н (smcp) in wght 900.

• лд (smcp) - seem too narrow compared to other letterforms (their proportion is wider in accompanying italic and seem more appropriate there). In the upright the issue is more pronounced in wdth 50.
• к (smcp) - seems bo be really wide compared to everything else in wdth 50. It is slightly less prominent, but still wide in wdth 150.
• я (smcp) seems to be pretty dense. I wonder if it can be wider in wdth 50, especially in its wght 900.
• ф looks pretty wide / large

• ж (smcp) in wdth 50 wght 360 also looks on the wider side.

• ч (smcp) - left serif is very short comparing to other letters. This one looks quite unexpected.

• The diagonal of у(smcp) seems dark here

Serbian

ЉЊљњ - this note applies to the whole design space.
I have noticed that the bowls in ЉЊљњ in Playfair employ significantly lower and smaller form compared to the bowls in Ьь. I had a conversation about this with a native Serbian designer, Jovana Jocić. Her recommendation was to align the size of the bowl in ЉЊљњ as closely as possible to the bowl in Ьь. Personally, I often use a technique of subtly narrowing the bowl in ЉЊљњ, as well as the counters in ЛлНн. This allows me to reduce the activity of these wide characters in the overall rhythm. However, I strive not to excessively lower the bowl present in these characters, if possible. It might be a challenge to reconcile the bar in Њ and њ with the bowl. But maintaining harmony and coherence between the bowls of ЉЊ and ЋЂ is also important, so they should not be too low.

Serbian UC
ЋЂ - it would be beneficial to incorporate slightly more asymmetrical bar: shorter on the left and extended more to the right. In the upright styles it might be worth considering shorter serifs which will give more space to the bottom part of the letter. Also the Ђ seems to be a little wider than I would expect in comparison to Ћ.

Serbian SMCP
ђђ (smcp) - the bottom part is radically lowered, large opsz doesn’t have that effect. Making the serifs on the top bar shorter would help giving it more space.

Bulgarian LC

• л - appears slightly heavy, with darkish join of strokes. More visible in wght 900.
• в - seems to appear lighter than other letters on the middle stroke, at the same time the left long curve could be perhaps lighter.

Bulgarian UC

• In wght 900 Bulgarian Л, but especially Д look too wide. In wdth 150 they also make and impression of being slightly too light.
  This sample also shows the density of Я in italic in narrow widths. In wght 360 the effect in Д and Л is milder, but is present to some extent.

Bulgarian SMCP

• д and л (smcp) - seem to be slightly wide in text.

• ф (smcp) - seems to be too large and catches an eye in text. IMO it is too much, even for Bulgarian version of this letterform. ъф pars seems to be overkerned.