====[ EDUCATIVE INTRO ]====

At a time when making books was a very time-consuming and labor-intensive process, an increasingly literate 12th-century Europe required more and more books. To keep up with the increasing demand for the spread of literature was a ongoing struggle. Writing materials such as inks, dyes and parchment were very expensive. And it wasn't until the 15th century, when parchment was largely replaced by paper, along with the arrival of the printing press, for it to gradually became cheaper, faster and less labor-intensive.

So it made perfect sense to find other ways to help with this process.
Simplifying a script and cutting back on the decorative calligraphy was the most effective way of doing this.

This led to the development of simplified variations to pre-existing bookhand scripts. One of such forms is littera textualis, categorizing within the Textualis/Textura or simply Gothic bookhand scripts group.

Littera textualis is the simplest and least calligraphic form of textualis. It was developed with just two main goals in mind, to save time and costs. The simplified letterforms could be written much quicker than the more calligraphic and luxurious variations. It offered a more cost effective and faster version to the script. It was often used for less important literary works and academic papers.

It functioned as the standard bookhand script in the Netherlands during the 14th & 15th centuries.

====[ ABOUT THIS FONT ]====

TEXTUALIS BATAVICUM - A calligraphic inspired Blackletter/Gothic bookhand script. Essentially a Textualis/Textura inspired work.
The design mainly follows the concept for a traditional form of littera textualis bookhand script as was described in the intro written above.

It remains a work in progress and I will add update info for this font in the comment section bellow.

Some character still need slight adjustments, but so far I am very pleased with the result. As you can probably notice, the uppercase characters have slight more weight than the lowercase has.

More characters follow soon.

I hope y'all like it

Various alternates in the capitals.

@ : ligatable S.

# : ligatable T.

$ : baseline-aligned f.

` : zero-width apostrophe.

Inspired by Bastard by Barnbrook Fonts and Minotur by cablecomputer

LITERA FACILIOR GOTI ― A 'Blackletter' script style with a twist
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Also known as Gothic script, Gothic Minuscule, or Textura, was a script used throughout Western Europe from approx. the 12th untill the 17th century.

This FontStruction was aimed at mimicing the aesthetic approach of a ― ‘Textura’ variant of the Gothic Minuscule script style, more accuratly refered to as ‘Littera Textualis’. This style is most characterized by its strong sturdy letterforms, with distinguishing sharp, straight and angular features as oposed to the other variations in this catagory.

In terms of authenticity to the original predecessing formal script family, my ‘Litera Facilior Goti’ didn't took a whole lot of care for authenticity. The idea was to take a more independent and experimental approach to shaping the letters and forms, so it wasn't necessarily inspired by any specific typeface in particular, it rather recycles certain characteristics of a ‘Textualis Quadrata’, but beyond those aspects of general guidelines it evolved on its own.

Some of the areas where the design tends to really stray away from the tradition is for example the serifs:

It's often that I have some trouble with the weight ratio distribution of serifs and such elements in simplified modular based geometric Blackletter fonts. In many of such designs they tend to have been left pretty static and equal in thickness throughout the full character set. Which I think is often either having some letters look clumsy or even weird, and generally speaking also often making them appear too thick.

So this was one of the things I had to try and adress, I experimented a little with the style and forms of the serifs. Eventually this resulted in multiple deviations in variety to mix and create a more dynamic distribution. similar to what was done in less formal scripts. Over time they became ever further simplified, letterforms that involved less reorientation of the pen, in pursuit of styles that were quicker to write.

But taken as a whole typeface I find that it is having this certain ‘random-ish’ characteristic that is simply working for the better of these particular style fonts.

I'm still working on improving its overall rhymes and reasons to a certain point that is acceptable, balanced and with enough consistency. But up to this stage I personally think that the concept worked out quite successfully so far. And that even despite the fact that its stripped down of most ornamental decorative calligraphic extravaganza, it still managed to capture a convincing portion of that ‘Medieval ’ looks and personal flavour.

But I think that in the end this became a pretty neat looking font and it would classify somewhere between a hybrid mix of simplified Blacklettering and a drunken man's ‘Textualis’.

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Cheers!