Improve style mapping name data in static fonts

This release changes very little, but improves the style mapping name data of the static fonts. This should help the fonts work slightly better as regular-italic-bold-bolditalic sets in some apps and systems. See PR #140 for more details.

Another recent change (which was just added to the previous release as a "hot fix"): the variable fonts have been very slightly adjusted so that the ital axis comes last in the STAT table, which is recommended by Google Fonts. More info at #139.

Improve accent attachment in alt glyphs, refine caron glyphs

This release corrects accent attachment for alt glyphs. So, for example, the Dutch "ij acute" becomes possible for the alts used to allow the Bounce and Irregularity axes. Caron glyphs like /dcaron, /lcaron, and /tcaron have also been slightly improved, with an accent that is more distinct from the typical quotes in the family.

Downloads available in this release:

• Shantell_Sans_1.010.zip is the full set of fonts, including a variable font that includes all axes, including the ital axis
• shantell_sans-for-googlefonts.zip includes just the variable font, split into one Roman variable font and and one Italic variable font. This approach excludes the ital axis, but tends to be easier to work with for web development (CSS and browsers handle the axis inconsistently).

Update, May 30, 2024

The Variable Fonts have in both downloads have been very slightly adjusted so that the ital axis comes last in the STAT table. More info at #139.

1.009 – Fix issues in DŽ, Dž, dž, & Peso

This release makes the following changes:

• The accents in DŽ, Dž, dž are now correctly attached over the "z" in each glyph. (Closes #134)
• A small interpolation glitch was fixed in ₱ (Peso) (Closes #130)

1.008 – adjust right quotes, fix interpolation glitch in Ẵẵ

This release makes two small adjustments:

1. Changes the right quotes (’ and ”) to curl in a more typical way, mirroring the left quote. It originally curled in a similar way to the left quote, but I have since realized that this detail would only serve as a potential distraction to people who care about such things.
2. Fixes an interpolation glitch in the tilde of Ẵ and ẵ.

1.007 – Update axis naming & ranges, plus static instances

This release updates the variable axes to align with the Google Fonts Axis Registry, which just recently newly merged definitions for Bounce, Informality, and Spacing. Specific changes to Shantell Sans:

• The former “Tracking” axis is now called ”Spacing”
  • It goes from 0 (default spacing) to 100 (max spacing), rather than the previous maximum value of 500. The design of the maximum hasn’t changed; it is merely now expressed as a percentage-based scale, rather than in units per em.
• The former “Irregularity” axis (IRGL) is now called “Informality” (INFM)
  • Its range stays the same: 0 (Normal) to 100 (Informal)

This release also fixes an issue where triangle glyphs (▲△▶▷▼▽◀◁▴▵▸▹▾▿◂◃) weren’t quite shifting as expected along the Bounce axis.

1.006 – Various technical fixes

Changelog (Click to expand)

This release includes a bunch of little technical fixes and improvements:

• Adds a slashed 0 under the OpenType feature zero
• Makes the lowercase u just slightly rounder to more clearly differentiate it from v
• Removes some alt glyphs that were being added, but weren’t included in the random-alts feature
• Improves STAT table
• Adjusts “Regular Italic” instance names to simply ”Italic”
• Fixes an issue that removed some OpenType features from the Normal static fonts
• Fixes a glitch of the shaping in the static Irregular Italic p
• Fixes interpolation issue in →

Hotfix, Oct 10: Simplified the release files to exclude static TTFs for Desktop, as these are mostly redundant. (If you really want these, they can be found in the repo.)

Installation instructions

First, click on the .zip file below to download it. Then, unzip that file.

Quit out of any applications that might be using the fonts (like Adobe Illustrator, Microsoft Word, Keynote, etc).

Finally, install the fonts:

• On macOS, I recommend copying the whole remaining Shantell Sans 1.006 folder into your <your_username>/Library/Fonts folder (which will have a path like stephennixon/Library/Fonts). Alternatively, you can install the fonts using Font Book.
• On Windows, I recommend opening Font Settings, then selecting all the files in the release’s Desktop folder and dragging and dropping them onto the Font Settings window.

Web Fonts

If you instead wish to use these on the web, use the woff2 files in the Web folder. For more info on using variable fonts on the web, check out variablefonts.io.

1.005 – Simplify static instances

Previously, there were three instance stops along the Bounce & Irregularity axes, at 0%, 50%, and 100%. This resulted in a total of 108 instances across 9 static subfamilies... which was a lot in a font menu.

This release is a test of narrowing down the instances to just give a bounce at 62.5% and Irregularity at 100%, which still gives a lot of typographic options, but narrows things down to a more-manageable 48 instances in 4 static subfamilies, while hitting the “sweet spots” of Bounce and Irregularity.

The variable font still include the full ranges of these axes, for those who want to use these in special cases such as illustration and animation. And, if you need these styles in static fonts for print design, check out Slice for making custom slices from variable fonts!

1.004 – Refinements to kerning and features, plus a few tweaks to shaping and spacing

If you come across this release: enjoy, but please don’t post about it publicly just yet! This is a “soft launch,” intended for an open final font development stage. We will publicize a full release more widely, very soon!

This is the first non-private, OFL-licensed release of Shantell Sans.

This project is very near “final,” but there are still a few tasks to complete before this is fully ready for full publication on Google Fonts.

Hot fixes (changes added here without making a new release) as of 400ec29:

• “Randomization” moved to a rlig feature, because it shouldn’t be turned off as often as calt is
• Fraction feature (frac) fixed

1.003 – Adds Cyrillic, more Latin, and many more styles. Close to release-ready.

There will still be a few tweaks and refinements from here, but this is getting close to being ready for release.

Notably, it adds:

• Cyrillic language support, by Anya Danilova
• Glyphs to complete the full Google Fonts Latin Plus glyphset
• Additional styles:
  • Italics, both as a variable font ital axis and as static fonts
  • A slightly wider "bounce" axis
  • Instances and static fonts for "SemiBouncy" and "Irregularish" styles, which engage these styles but only about halfway
  • A variable axis for Tracking
• Many bug fixes and refinements

Shantell Sans, a custom handwriting font made for visual artist Shantell Martin

This is the first release of Shantell Sans! It includes variable & static fonts for desktop & web installation.

See the Project Readme for more details.

Note: currently, a private-use license is included in the release download. This will likely be changed at a later point.