i carry your heart with me(i carry it in
my heart)i am never without it(anywhere
i go you go,my dear;and whatever is done
by only me is your doing,my darling)
                                 i fear
no fate(for you are my fate,my sweet)i want
no world(for beautiful you are my world,my true)
and it’s you are whatever a moon has always meant
and whatever a sun will always sing is you

here is the deepest secret nobody knows
(here is the root of the root and the bud of the bud
and the sky of the sky of a tree called life;which grows
higher than soul can hope or mind can hide)
and this is the wonder that’s keeping the stars apart

i carry your heart(i carry it in my heart)

e. e. cummings © 1952

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laft font

tuesday, 17 june 2025

just as the luft font had established itself as my favourite ereading font, version 33.x of the Iosevka font introduced an angled “top-cut” single storey lower case a in three glyph variants—serifless, serifed and tailed, leading into its introduction with the laft font.

The angled top-cut glyph is significantly more distinguishable than the standard serifless single storey a, at least to these eyes—due, i suspect, to the asymmetry of the glyph’s vertical bar—with its more distinct angled outline (perceptible even at small font sizes) contrasting what would otherwise be two competing symmetrical glyph shapes with the o character.

The “tailed” flair adds further distinction from the o glyph, as well as, offering a pleasant visual “flow” characteristic to the font—most noticeable with the grammatic article “a”.

from lift & luft

while past fonts have previously leaned dominantly towards serifless glyph shapes, the laft font relaxes this constraint with the judicious use of serifs, tails and turns—reintroducing common monospaced source code (and past font) glyph shapes (while still adhering to non-mirrored glyph shapes for improved dyslexic readability). In particular..

  • the tailed lower case d—similarly replicating the visual flow of the single storey a
  • the toothless corner lower case b—departing from the toothless rounded glyph towards the more common toothed outline (sans corner)
  • the eared serifless lower case p—a return to its classic shape (all while still preserving non-mirrored b d p q outlines)
  • the straight-turn lower case y—enhancing the “flow” characteristic of laft with added visual distinctiveness from the v..

laft font

The distinctive glyph set of the lift, luft and laft fonts (from common font designs)..

letter lift font luft font laft font
B P R open open open
G toothed-hookless toothed-hookless toothed-hookless
Q open-swash open-swash open-swash
I (eye) serifed serifless serifless
J hook flat-hook flat-hook
a double-storey
toothless-corner
double-storey
toothless-corner
single-storey
top-cut-tailed
b toothless-rounded toothless-rounded toothless-corner
d toothed toothed tailed
f extended extended extended
l (el) extended extended extended
m earless-rounded earless-rounded earless-rounded
p earless-corner earless-corner eared
q hook-tailed hook-tailed hook-tailed
t asymmetric (reversed) asymmetric (reversed) asymmetric (reversed)
u toothless-rounded toothless-rounded toothless-rounded
y straight straight straight-turn

readability

KOReader laft font

On 300 PPI eink screens, even at small font sizes, this top-cut font is highly legible—much more so than previous font sets with the serifless single storey a. The double storey luft and lift fonts still remain more legible but the added air the single storey a imparts to the page—with its third most common letter frequency and with the frequent “ea” bigram—is a refreshing reading alternative.

typeface rank readability aid readability penalty visual air
lift 1 double-storey a,
serifed I (eye)
   
luft 2 double-storey a serifless I (eye)  
laft 3 straight-turn y single-storey a,
serifless I (eye)
increased

My current KOReader layout setup displaces the luft font with the new laft font for its decreased visual page density (increased air) as my default font—the luxury of good visual acuity (knock on wood!). As always, YMMV :-)

lajt font

the serifed lower case j is a highly readable glyph shape, almost ubiquitous with source code fonts. And was a serious consideration for the laft font. Instead, it provides an alternate flavour..

lajt font

of the laft font with..

  • the serifed flat-hook lower case j (the serif punctuating the floating “dot”).
  • the serifless hook capital J (to complement the change up)
  • the serifed capital I (for dyslexic contrast to the extended lower case l (el))

The serifed flat-hook j more distinctly fills its character cell, the serif adding legibility to the glyph. However, this is counter to the “air” emphasis of the laft font (low as the j’s frequency of use is), hence, the creation of this alternate font—for those times i wish to revisit the application of this glyph :-)

repos

This font may be found on OneDrive.

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monday, 16 october 2023

still more font changes. Though, it feels like the journey has finally reached an end, near full circle to a geometric sans serif font.

While the Atkinson Hyperlegible Font played a large role in the various typefaces created here, it is the abandonment of the various hooks towards starker strokes—of the grote font—that now find favour with my ereading.

A return to the Bauhaus geometric tradition. Some glyph anchoring provided by hooked strokes is lost but added air is gained in the monospaced cells. The asymmetrical lower case t completes this minimalist expression. (Only the serifed lower case i j remain, the top serif more clearly emphasizing the glyphs’ dot).

While a somewhat stark font, i have found it to be a highly legible font, seemingly easier to read at speed—due to its air and minimalist glyph shapes which lessen the visual effort. (The web font here differs with the vertical crossing capital Q due to the lower resolution of computer monitors).

It has been a year of changes under this visual surface. A move to Alpine Linux for the server and development platforms. And to Helix from the Vim editor—this may not seem like much, but for someone who has written with Vim forever for everything, it is a huge shift (welcome in the change it brings with its unfamiliarity and new tricks to learn). A good year of changes.

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