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| Category | Serif |
|---|---|
| Classification | Old-style |
| Designer(s) | Peter S. Baker |
| Date created | 2001 |
| License | OFL |
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| Sample | |
| Latest release date | December 26, 2024; 3 months ago (2024-12-26) (2.211) |
Junicode ("Junius-Unicode") is afree and open-source (SIL Open Font License)old-style seriftypeface developed byPeter S. Baker of theUniversity of Virginia. The design is based on a 17th-century typeface used inOxford,England.
Junicode contains many special characters andligatures formedievalists, along with numerous otherUnicode glyphs. The font hasOpenType features for advancedtypesetting and includes truesmall caps.
Since August 2023, Junicode has been avariable font and remains under active development.[1]
The designs of the Junicode roman characters are based on a 17th-century typeface design used at theOxford University Press, also known as Clarendon Press. Peter Baker based the Junicode roman design on those used inGeorge Hickes'Linguarum Vett. Septentrionalium Thesaurus (1703–1705), naming the typeface Junicode ("Junius Unicode") afterFranciscus Junius, who had commissioned the original typeface used for the Anglo-Saxon texts in that volume, "Pica Saxon".[2][3] The designs represent an intermediate stage between earlier 16th century typefaces (such asGaramond) and later 18th century typefaces (such asCaslon). The Junicode roman character design shares a number of features with these earlier and later typefaces.
Junicode has an individualGreek typeface, Foulis Greek. The design is a traditional revival as well. It is based on the Greek Double Pica cut byAlexander Wilson (c. 1714–1786), a Scottishdoctor,astronomer, and typefounder. Wilson's typeface was used in 1756–1758 for a renowned edition ofHomer's epics (theIliad and theOdyssey),[4][5] printed byRobert Foulis andAndrew Foulis of the Foulis Publishing House and printers to theUniversity of Glasgow. The characters previously included in Junicode font, since version 1.000, moved into a separate font.[6]
The Junicode font was developed especially for medievalists, due to the need for a font to cover the large number of special characters and ligatures used in medievalmanuscripts. The font has complete support for theMedieval Unicode Font Initiative version 4.0 in the regular and italic faces.
Despite the specialization of Junicode for the needs of medievalists, the font is quite complete and supports a large number of Unicode characters. In the regular style, over 3000 characters are available. This makes Junicode useful for a wide range of languages that utilize theLatin alphabet, including scholarly texts and publications that require specialdiacritics not traditionally found in conventional fonts. It exists in regular, italic, bold and bold italic styles, with the regular style having the largest character set. Regular and bold styles havesmall caps and all styles haveswash alternates, although not a complete set of italic swash capitals.
Junicode has a very wide linespacing in many applications due to its numerous tall characters with stacked diacritics.
Junicode isfree and open source software licensed under theSIL Open Font License, and is released in theTrueType format, which is used on mostoperating systems. Additionally, specific packages for Junicode are available for open source systems such asDebian,Ubuntu, andFreeBSD.
The Junicode font is developed in theFontForge typeface editing program. The font includes TrueTypehinting, generated by the ttfautohint program.
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