glifbits

posted on 24 Nov 2019

(This post is a retro-summary of 4 posts made from 2019-11-24 to 2020-02-01. You can see the precise history in this website’s repository. Latest revision: 2020-02-02)

The glifs are a character set which have a handwritten form (meant for fast writing), a canonical pixel-character form (a sort of runic font), and a dedicated keyboard key (with corresponding ASCII character).

They contain an approximate phonetic cover of English inspired by George Shaw’s Shavian and Kingsley Read’s QuikScript alphabets.

Alphabet design is an art. It is intractable to describe all the phonetic, aesthetic, numerological, metaphoric, and pragmatic impacts of every small decision.

The reader is encouraged to study the QuikScript Manual linked above for a starting point.

frames

A frame is an imaginary glif used to show how 3x5 symbols fit inside a 4x8 slot. The circles indicate area used by style marks (dotted and overlined).

picture of glif frames

uh-oh, mutt, tip, dip, imp, step, and zig.

picture of the glif string `-qtdisz`

ent, cheech, judge, pod, boat, key, goat, feet, and boot.

picture of the glif string `ecjpbkg3u`

then, ore, mum, roar, yay, heat, wow, and thoth.

picture of the glif string `5omryhw7`

sheesh, jour, ant, foot, lull, fluff, vee, art

picture of the glif string `x2n9lfva`