Hexa Designed by Ákos Polgárdi in 2011
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Typeface Specimen
T
he initial letterforms of Hexa were designed by Ákos Polgárdi, under the supervision of Amondó Szegi, for a classroom assignment during the fall term of the academic year 2011-12, at KREA contemporary Arts Institute, Budapest. In the ensuing months the number of glyphs was significantly expanded and incorporated into an actual font. The design rests on rigorous construction principles: among other restraints, only vertical strokes are allowed to be thick, all angled strokes have one determined direction (N-E) and so on. In its present form the typeface supports the English, German and Hungarian character sets. It includes old style numerals, basic mathematical symbols and 90+ ligatures. On 01.01.2012 Hexa was made available free of charge.
Hexa typeface specimen
Aa An alphabet is a standard set of letters —basic written symbols or graphemes— each of which represents a phoneme in a spoken language, either as it exists now or as it was in the past. There are other systems, such as logographies, in which each character represents a word, morpheme, or semantic unit, and syllabaries, in which each character represents a syllable.
Hexa typeface specimen
Bb Brackets are tall punctuation marks used in matched pairs within text, to set apart or interject other text. In the United States, “bracket” usually refers specifically to the “square” or “box” type. The chevron was the earliest type to appear in written English. Desiderius Erasmus coined the term lunula to refer to the rounded parentheses (), recalling the round shape of the moon.
Hexa typeface specimen
Cc The colon (:) is a punctuation mark consisting of two equally sized dots centered on the same vertical line. A colon informs the reader that what follows the mark proves, explains, or lists elements of what preceded the mark. Luca Serianni, an Italian scholar who helped to define and develop the colon as a punctuation mark, identified four punctuational modes for it: syntactical-deductive, syntactical-descriptive, appositive, and segmental. Hexa typeface specimen
Dd A dagger, or obelisk is a typographical symbol or glyph. The term “obelisk” derives from Greek obeliskos, which means “little obelus”; from Ancient Greek: obelos meaning “roasting spit”. A double dagger or diesis is a variant with two handles. Neither should be confused with the Christian cross symbols.
Hexa typeface specimen
Ee The em dash (—), m dash, m-rule, or “mutton,” often demarcates a break of thought or some similar interpolation stronger than the interpolation demarcated by parentheses. It is also used to indicate that a sentence is unfinished because the speaker has been interrupted.
Hexa typeface specimen
Ff A fleuron or printers’ flower is a typographic element, or glyph, used originally as an ornament for typographic compositions — often, for example, to compose borders on title pages of historic books. Fleurons are stylized forms of flowers or leaves; the term derives from the Old French word floron for flower. Robert Bringhurst in The Elements of Typographic Style calls the forms “horticultural dingbats.” Hexa typeface specimen
Gg A glyph is an element of writing: an individual mark on a written medium that contributes to the meaning of what is written. A glyph is made up of one or more graphemes. Two or more glyphs which have the same significance, whether used interchangeably or chosen depending on context, are called allographs of each other.
Hexa typeface specimen
Hh The hyphen is a punctuation mark used to join words and to separate syllables of a single word. The use of hyphens is called hyphenation. The hyphen should not be confused with dashes, which are longer and have different uses, or with the minus sign which is also longer.
Hexa typeface specimen
Ii In a written or published work, an initial is a letter at the beginning of a work, a chapter, or a paragraph that is larger than the rest of the text. The word is derived from the Latin initialis, which means standing at the beginning. An initial often is several lines in height and in older books or manuscripts, sometimes ornately decorated.
Hexa typeface specimen
Jj In typesetting, justification (can also be referred to as ‘full justification’) is the typographic alignment setting of text or images within a column or “measure” to align along both the left and right margin. Text set this way is said to be “justified”.
Hexa typeface specimen
Kk In typography, kerning (less commonly mortising) is the process of adjusting the spacing between characters in a proportional font, usually to achieve a visually pleasing result. Kerning is the adjustment of the space between individual letter forms vs. tracking which is the uniform adjustment of spacing applied over a range of characters.
Hexa typeface specimen
Ll In typography, leading refers to the distance between the baselines of successive lines of type. The term originated in the days of hand-typesetting, when thin strips of lead were inserted into the formes to increase the vertical distance between lines of type.
Hexa typeface specimen
Mm In hot metal typesetting, a matrix (often abbreviated to “mat�) is a mold for casting a letter, known as a sort, used in letterpress printing. In letterpress typography the matrix of one letter is inserted into the bottom of a hand mould, the mould is locked and molten type metal is poured into a straight-sided vertical cavity above the matrix.
Hexa typeface specimen
Nn The numero sign or numero symbol is a typographic abbreviation of the word number indicating ordinal numeration, especially in names and titles. Typographically, the numero sign combines the upper-case Latin letter N with a usually superscript lower-case letter o, sometimes underlined, resembling the masculine ordinal indicator.
Hexa typeface specimen
Oo The ogonek (Polish, “little tail�, the diminutive of ogon) is a diacritic hook placed under the lower right corner of a vowel in the Latin alphabet used in several European and Native American languages.
Hexa typeface specimen
Pp The pilcrow, also called the paragraph mark, paragraph sign, paraph, alinea (Latin: a linea, “off the line�), or blind P,is a typographical character commonly used to denote individual paragraphs. The pilcrow was used in the Middle Ages to mark a new train of thought, before the convention of physically discrete paragraphs was commonplace.
Hexa typeface specimen
Qq A quire of paper is a measure of paper quantity. The usual meaning is 25 sheets of the same size and quality; 1/20 of a ream of 500 sheets. Quires of 25 sheets are often used for machinemade paper, while 24 sheets are often used for hand-made or specialised paper of 480-sheet reams. Quires of 15, 18 or 20 sheets have also been used, depending on the type of paper.
Hexa typeface specimen
Rr The Rotunda is a specific medieval blackletter script. It originates in Carolingian minuscule. Sometimes, it is not considered a blackletter script, but a script on its own. It was used mainly in southern Europe. The difference between the Rotunda and other blackletter scripts is that broken bows appear only in a few letters such as d.
Hexa typeface specimen
Ss In typography, serifs are semi-structural details on the ends of some of the strokes that make up letters and symbols. A typeface with serifs is called a serif typeface (or serifed typeface). A typeface without serifs is called sans serif or sans-serif, from the French sans, meaning “without�.
Hexa typeface specimen
Tt The tilde is a grapheme with several uses. The name of the character comes from Spanish, from the Latin titulus meaning “title” or “superscription”, though the term “tilde” has evolved and now has a different meaning in linguistics. It was originally written over a letter as a mark of abbreviation, but has since acquired a number of other uses as a diacritic mark or a character in its own right. Hexa typeface specimen
Uu Uncial is a majuscule script (written entirely in capital letters) commonly used from the 3rd to 8th centuries AD by Latin and Greek scribes. Uncial letters are written in either Greek, Latin, or Gothic.
Hexa typeface specimen
Vv The vertical bar (|) is a character with various uses in mathematics, where it can be used to represent absolute value, among others; in computing and programming and in general typography, as a divider not unlike the interpunct.
Hexa typeface specimen
Xx In typography, the x-height or corpus size refers to the distance between the baseline and the mean line in a typeface. Typically, this is the height of the letter x in the font (the source of the term), as well as the u, v, w, and z. (Curved letters such as a, c, e, m, n, o, r and s tend to exceed the x-height slightly, due to overshoot.)
Hexa typeface specimen
Yy The letter yogh was used in Middle English and Older Scots, representing y (/j/) and various velar phonemes. It was derived from the Old English form of the letter g. In Middle English writing, tailed z came to be indistinguishable from yogh.
Hexa typeface specimen
Zz 0 (zero) is both a number and the numerical digit used to represent that number in numerals. It fulfills a central role in mathematics as the additive identity of the integers, real numbers, and many other algebraic structures. As a digit, 0 is used as a placeholder in place value systems.
Hexa typeface specimen
01 Arabic numerals or Hindu numerals or Hindu-Arabic numerals or Indo-Arabic numerals are the ten digits (0, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9). They are descended from the Hindu-Arabic numeral system developed by Indian mathematicians, in which a sequence of digits such as “975� is read as a numeral.
Hexa typeface specimen
23 The Indian numerals were adopted by the Persian mathematicians in India, and passed on to the Arabs further west. They were transmitted to Europe in the Middle Ages. The use of Arabic numerals spread around the world through European trade, books and colonialism. Today they are the most common symbolic representation of numbers in the world.
Hexa typeface specimen
45 As befitting their history, the digits (0, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8 and 9) are known as Hindu numerals or “Hindu-Arabic numerals”. The reason they are more commonly known as “Arabic numerals” in Europe and the Americas is that they were introduced to Europe in the 10th century by Arabs of North Africa, who were then using the digits from Libya to Morocco.
Hexa typeface specimen
67 Europeans did not know about the numerals’ origins in ancient India, so they named them “Arabic numerals”. Arabs, on the other hand, call the system “Hindu numerals”, referring to their origin in India. This is not to be confused with what the Arabs call the “Hindi numerals”, namely the Eastern Arabic numerals used in the Middle East, or any of the numerals currently used in Indian languages. Hexa typeface specimen
89 In English, the term Arabic numerals can be ambiguous. It most commonly refers to the numeral system widely used in Europe and the Americas. Arabic numerals is the conventional name for the entire family of related systems of Arabic and Indian numerals. It may also be intended to mean the numerals used by Arabs, in which case it generally refers to the Eastern Arabic numerals. Hexa typeface specimen
:;. Punctuation marks are symbols that indicate the structure and organization of written language, as well as intonation and pauses to be observed when reading aloud.
Hexa typeface specimen
!? In written English, punctuation is vital to disambiguate the meaning of sentences. For example, “woman, without her man, is nothing” and “woman: without her, man is nothing” have greatly different meanings, as do “eats shoots and leaves” and “eats, shoots and leaves”.
Hexa typeface specimen
+=The plus and minus signs (+ and -) are mathematical symbols used to represent the notions of positive and negative as well as the operations of addition and subtraction. Their use has been extended to many other meanings, more or less analogous. Plus and minus are Latin terms meaning “more” and “less”, respectively.
Hexa typeface specimen
% The percent sign (%) is the symbol used to indicate a percentage (that the preceding number is divided by one hundred). Related signs include the permille (per thousand) sign and the permyriad (per ten thousand) sign (also known as a basis point), which indicate that a number is divided by one thousand or ten thousand respectively. Higher proportions use partsper notation. Hexa typeface specimen
§ The section sign (§), also called the “double S”, “sectional symbol” or “signum sectionis”, is a typographical character used mainly to refer to a particular section of a document, such as a legal code. It is frequently used along with the pilcrow, or paragraph sign.
Hexa typeface specimen
& An ampersand (or epershand; “&”) is a logogram representing the conjunction word “and”. This symbol is a ligature of the letters in et, Latin for “and”. The word ampersand is a conflation of the phrase “and per se and”, meaning “and (the symbol which) by itself (is) and”.
Hexa typeface specimen
fry In writing and typography, a ligature occurs where two or more graphemes are joined as a single glyph. Ligatures usually replace consecutive characters sharing common components and are part of a more general class of glyphs called “contextual forms�, where the specific shape of a letter depends on context such as surrounding letters or proximity to the end of a line.
Hexa typeface specimen
D
iese Prolegomena sind nicht zum Gebrauch vor 8/9,6 pt Lehrlinge, sondern vor künftige Lehrer, und sollen auch diesen nicht etwa dienen, um den Vortrag einer schon vorhandnen Wissenschaft anzuordnen, sondern um diese Wissenschaft selbst allererst zu erfinden. Es gibt Gelehrte, denen die Geschichte der Philosophie (der alten sowohl als neuen) selbst ihre Philosophie ist, vor diese sind gegenwärtige Prolegomena nicht geschrieben. Sie müssen warten, bis diejenigen, die aus den Quellen der Vernunft selbst zu schöpfen bemühet sind, ihre Sache werden ausgemacht haben, und alsdenn wird an ihnen die Reihe sein, von dem Geschehenen der Welt Nachricht zu geben. Widrigenfalls kann nichts gesagt werden, was ihrer Meinung nach nicht schon sonst gesagt worden ist, und in der Tat mag dieses auch als eine untrügliche Vorhersagung vor alles Künftige gelten; denn, da der menschliche Verstand über unzählige Gegenstände viele Jahrhunderte hindurch auf mancherlei Weise geschwärmt hat, so kann es nicht leicht fehlen, daß nicht zu jedem Neuen etwas Altes gefunden werden sollte, was damit einige Ähnlichkeit hätte. Meine Absicht ist, alle diejenigen, so es wert finden, sich mit Metaphysik zu beschäftigen, zu überzeugen: daß es unumgänglich notwendig sei, ihre Arbeit vor der Hand auszusetzen, alles bisher Geschehene als ungeschehen anzusehen, und vor allen Dingen zuerst die Frage aufzuwerfen: „ob auch so etwas, als Metaphysik, überall nur möglich sei.“ Ist sie Wissenschaft, wie kommt es, daß sie sich nicht, wie andre Wissenschaften, in allgemeinen und daurenden Beifall setzen kann? Ist sie keine, wie geht es zu, daß sie doch unter dem Scheine einer Wissenschaft unaufhörlich groß tut, und den menschlichen Verstand mit niemals erlöschenden, aber nie erfüllten Hoffnungen hinhält? Man mag also entweder sein Wissen oder Nichtwissen demonstrieren, so muß doch einmal über die Natur dieser angemaßten Wissenschaft etwas Si-
Hexa typeface specimen
D
iese Prolegomena sind nicht zum Gebrauch vor Lehrlinge, sondern vor künftige Lehrer, und sollen auch diesen nicht etwa dienen, um den Vortrag einer schon vorhandnen Wissenschaft anzuordnen, sondern um diese Wissenschaft selbst allererst zu erfinden. Es gibt Gelehrte, denen die Geschichte der Philosophie (der alten sowohl als neuen) selbst ihre Philosophie ist, vor diese sind gegenwärtige Prolegomena nicht geschrieben. Sie müssen warten, bis diejenigen, die aus den Quellen der Vernunft selbst zu schöpfen bemühet sind, ihre Sache werden ausgemacht haben, und alsdenn wird an ihnen die Reihe sein, von dem Geschehenen der Welt Nachricht zu geben. Widrigenfalls kann nichts gesagt werden, was ihrer Meinung nach nicht schon sonst gesagt worden ist, und in der Tat mag dieses auch als eine untrügliche Vorhersagung vor alles Künftige gelten; denn, da der menschliche Verstand über unzählige Gegenstände viele Jahrhunderte hindurch auf mancherlei Weise geschwärmt hat, so kann es nicht leicht fehlen, daß nicht zu jedem Neuen etwas Altes gefunden werden sollte, was damit einige Ähnlichkeit hätte. Meine Absicht ist, alle diejenigen, so es wert finden, sich mit Metaphysik zu beschäftigen, zu überzeugen: daß es unumgänglich notwendig sei, ihre Arbeit vor der Hand aus-
Hexa typeface specimen
10/12 pt
D
iese Prolegomena sind nicht zum Gebrauch vor Lehrlinge, sondern vor künftige Lehrer, und sollen auch diesen nicht etwa dienen, um den Vortrag einer schon vorhandnen Wissenschaft anzuordnen, sondern um diese Wissenschaft selbst allererst zu erfinden. Es gibt Gelehrte, denen die Geschichte der Philosophie (der alten sowohl als neuen) selbst ihre Philosophie ist, vor diese sind gegenwärtige Prolegomena nicht geschrieben. Sie müssen warten, bis diejenigen, die aus den Quellen der Vernunft selbst zu schöpfen bemühet sind, ihre Sache werden ausgemacht haben, und alsdenn wird an ihnen die Reihe sein, von dem Geschehenen der Welt Nachricht zu geben. Widrigenfalls kann nichts gesagt werden, was ihrer Meinung nach nicht schon sonst gesagt worden ist, und in der Tat mag dieses auch als eine untrügliche Vorhersagung vor alles Künftige gelten; denn, da der menschliche Verstand über unzäh-
Hexa typeface specimen
12/14,4 pt