Font Details
ILShakeFest font
Copyright 1995 Illinois Shakespeare Festival
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The idea of a Folio Font:
This font is based on the First Folio of Shakespeare. It was designed
primarily from the main titles (there are several distinct differences
between titles, text, quotes, character names, etc.). It's a specialized
font for specific uses, but I think you'll find it enjoyable to have
available, particularly for creating the correct "feel" in an instantly
recognizable way for marketing materials for Shakespeare plays or other items
relating to the period.
The main structure of this font will work best for limited use (it's great
for display work, like the titles of the plays). In order to have a font
that had some additional value, however, we added some characters to aid in
its use for text. Because it was expected that the use would be mostly for
titles, it has a more oblique feel than most of the text in the folio and the
caps are a little fancy for straight text use (but close to the italics used
for songs or character names). It _does_ have enough available to work with
some body text.
Keep in mind that you have to know how the letters are used in order to make
this font work properly. It would be totally impractical to take a
manuscript and just select all and switch to ILShakeFest font (yes, that's
the name of it). The main problem you would have would be in the usage of
the letter "s" which should have an entirely different look based on the
position within the word, etc.
Scott Mann (a student at Illinois State University) did all the heavy lifting
on this font and created the bulk of it, while I added ligatures, alternate
characters, and some refinements.
This should be considered a first version. With your feedback, we will
attempt to fine-tune and add for future releases. Are there additional
ligatures which would be useful? Should we have a second, non-oblique font
that would be used for straight text? Are there other punctuation marks or
symbols that are needed? Please let us know.
This font is Freeware. The Illinois Shakespeare Festival retains the rights
to the font, but you may distribute and use it freely as long as it is not
sold or altered and this "read me" file is included.
Why the name "ILShakeFest"? Wouldn't "FolioFont" or "Shakespeare" have been
more appropriate? Probably. But that's what you pay for a free font. We
get a little publicity. Fair trade?
The font contains all upper and lower case letters, plus period, comma,
colon, semi-colon, question-mark, parentheses, slash, hyphen and certain
special characters.
There are some special characters that I tried to place in easy-to-remember
locations for key strokes, as follows:
Three variations of the letter "s" for lower-case use
1. The "s" that looks like a long flourish is the standard lc "s"
2. The "s" that looks like an "s" is "option-s"
3. The "s" that looks like an "f" that extends over the next letter is
"Shift-option-s".
This works particularly well when followed by "t" or "i".
However, the "h" is too tall to work with that, so:
The "sh" that looks like "fh" is "option-h"
The "ct" with the little connecting flourish is "option-c"
There is also a alternate capital "A" with a leading flourish that is "option-a"
_____The use of the letter "s"______
This is a quick cheat, not meant to be authoritative (I haven't studied
this), but to allow for a close approximation.
No need to worry about upper case.
For an "s" at the end of a word, use #2, above (this includes instances
before an apostrophe, such as "is't".
For almost any other "s", use #1 if it's Title or italics, and use #3 if it's
straight text.
The exception seems to be with the double-ess. From my quick glance, I think
if in title or italics, use "1,2" and if straight text, use "3,3"
So, it is possible to take a document, change the font to "ILShakeFest" and
then use your word processor's search and replace function to:
1. Change all the "s" in the body text of the document from "s" to
"Shift-option-s", and then
2. Change all instances of "s space" and "s apostrophe" to "option-s space"
and "option-s apostrophe" respectively.
That should get you close.
A note about font types: In both the Macintosh and Windows version, both
Type 1 and Truetype versions are included. Which to use? If you are
primarily printing to a non-postscript printer (ink-jets, etc.) and don't
have ATM (Adobe Type Manager), you'll probably be happier with the Truetype.
If you're planning on doing any desk-top publishing and sending projects in
electronic form to be printed by a professional printer, you should throw out
all your Truetype fonts and try to only use Type 1 or 3 fonts, because the
high-end output for print houses really doesn't like Truetype. (I'm sure of
this on Macintosh because I do a lot of DTP, but I'm not as confident of this
information for Windows, 'cause I don't do windows.)
I'd love to hear your feedback, comments and suggestions. Write to me at:
pguithe@oratmail.cfa.ilstu.edu
--Peter Guither, General Manager
The Illinois Shakespeare Festival
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Il Shake Festfont download, Il Shake Fest font.