Playwrite

Playwrite is a typeface engine that allows the creation of primary school cursive fonts. These school fonts are the practical result of the Primarium research project [www.primarium.info] a groundbreaking educational effort that documents the history and current practice of instruction methodologies and models taught to primary school students worldwide. Its findings with regards to the calligraphic models currently in use, their development and rationale, informed the design of the Playwrite glyphs.

The shape of the handwritten Latin alphabethas developed following different currents, trends and colonial influences around the world. As a result, the very notion of what constitutes primary school cursive writing varies dramatically. It could be vertical or slanted, fully joined or semi-joined, uppercase letters can be ornate and decorative or simply borrowed from print styles, lowercase letters can be based on round or oval foundational shapes, and the proportion of the x-height vis-a-vis the ascenders and descenders can differ.

Build instructions

The definitive, stable, fonts are built by the Continuous Integration engine, which runs every time the source files are updated in the repository. It produces a .zip file with all the built fonts that which is included on each Action run as well as pushes the produced fonts into the fonts directory.

If you want to build fonts manually on your own computer as part of the development or testing process:

• make build will produce font files. But they should not be pushed manually to the repository. Once you are happy with the changes in the source files, please only push the sources and the CI run will produce the definitive fonts.

Letter variations

Based on the Primarium study the TypeTogether team isolated a limited number of structural variations for the Latin letter shapes: 8 variation styles for lower cases and three for uppercases. With the help of a sturdy contextual alternate (CALT) opentype code these different veriation groups can be seamlessly combined.

Precursive

Default set of lower case letters. These are completely unjoined.

Modern cursive

Same design as precursive in isolated shape but it istriggers a semi-connected typesetting. Uses .mod suffix (e.g. n.mod).

Fully joined odern cursive

Adds loops to descenders and connecting strokes to letters that do not connect in .mod. Uses .jmc suffix (e.g. g.jmc).

Full Cursive

Construction os several glyphs change to match a continuous cursive style. Uses .ful suffix (e.g. s.ful).

Speed loops

Adds speedloops to most letters with ascender strokes. Uses .lop suffix (e.g. h.lop).

Curved entry stroke

Changes the lead-in connection at x-heigh level for several letters. Uses .cnt suffix (e.g. n.cnt).

Mirrored loops

Adds loops in to two letters and switches loop direction in “f”. Uses .mrr suffix (e.g. f.mrr).

Microloops

Adds knots or small loops to mark stroke direction change in some letters. Uses .mlp suffix (e.g. o.mlp).

Print

Default set of upper case letters. These are completely unjoined.

Cursive upper cases

Cursive capitals. Also enable connection with a number of lowercase letters Uses .cur suffix (e.g. A.cur).

Decorative upper cases

Secondary set of decorative capitals to match certain handwriting models. These are semi-connected. Uses .dec suffix (e.g. G.dec).

Regional variants lower cases

Alternative designs necessary for one or more specific regions. These use suffix locl when used in several fonts or locl_XX where XX is a two letter country code. (e.g. Q.dec_pt).

Regional variants upper cases

Design variation axes

Playwrite's design space spans over four variation axes: the slant of the letters, ascender and descender length, typographic color, and a stroke speed axes that controls the tension of the curves and the direction and connection of the strokes.

• Weight - wght Min: 100 Max: 400

• Slant - slnt Min: 0 Max: -18

• Speed - SPED Min: 0 Max: 100

• Vertical Extension - YEXT Min: 0 Max: 100

Country recipes

Recipes for regional models of the Playwrite font arecreated by recipes that reside on a CSV file Playwrite/sources/data/models-all.csv. Each row of the file contains the data that names the font model, specifies a location in three of the founr axes (the weight axis always remains variable), and contains a selection of the of the letter variants that are preferred in that region.

Structure of each row is as follows:
Country;lang_tag;slnt;EXTD;SPED;UC;lc

The classes UC and lc must contain the exact number of glyphs that is expected in the substitution classes, and in the correct order:
@UC = [A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z AE Eth IJ Eng OE Thorn Germandbls];

@lc = [a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s t u v w x y z ae eth ij eng oe thorn germandbls idotless jdotless];

Here is an example of the recipe used for the Canada Playwrite Font:
Canada;CAN;18;496;100;A.cur_locl B.dec C.cur D.dec E.cur F.dec G.dec H.dec I.cur J.cur K.dec L.dec M.cur N.cur O.dec P.dec Q.cur R.dec S.cur T.dec U.cur V.cur W.cur X.cur Y.cur Z.cur AE.cur Eth IJ.cur Eng OE.cur Thorn Germandbls;a.mod b.lop c.mod d.mod e.ful f.mrr g.jmc h.lop i.mod j.jmc k.lop l.lop m.cnt n.cnt o.mod p.mrr_ca q.mrr r.ful s.ful t.mod u.mod v.cnt w.cnt x.ful y.cnt z.cnt ae.ful eth.mod ij.jmc eng oe.ful thorn.jmc germandbls.jmc idotless.mod jdotless.jmc

List of fonts by region

Each font model uses the following naming conventions:

• The country name is represented with a two-letter code abbreviation that follows the Alpha-2 code of the ISO 3166.
• Models with different variants are named using common abbreviations in each country (e.g., VIC for Victoria in Australia) or a designated variant name that is, in turn, localized using the country language (e.g. Traditionnelle in France).
• The font family name and file name use the two-letter code and variant abbreviations.
• The display name is the fully unabbreviated and localized name of a model. It is used on specimen pages and includes the country name translated into each country's language.

Country	Alpha-2 code	Variant	Family name	Display name
Argentina	AR		Playwrite AR	Playwrite Argentina
Australia	AU	NSW	Playwrite AU NSW	Playwrite Astralia NSW
Australia	AU	QLD	Playwrite AU QLD	Playwrite Australia QLD
Australia	AU	SA	Playwrite AU SA	Playwrite Australia NSW
Australia	AU	TAS	Playwrite AU TAS	Playwrite Australia TAS
Australia	AU	VIC	Playwrite AU VIC	Playwrite Australia VIC
Australia	AT		Playwrite AT	Playwrite Österreich
Belgium	BE	WAL	Playwrite BE WAL	Playwrite België WAL
Belgium	BE	VLG	Playwrite BE VLG	Playwrite België VLG
Brazil	BR		Playwrite BR	Playwrite Brasil
Canada	CA		Playwrite CA	Playwrite Canada
Chile	CL		Playwrite CL	Playwrite Chile
Colombia	CO		Playwrite CO	Playwrite Colombia
Croatia	HR		Playwrite HR	Playwrite Hrvatska
Croatia	HR	Left Hand	Playwrite HR Lijeva	Playwrite Hrvatska Lijeva
Cuba	CU		Playwrite CU	Playwrite Cuba
Czech Republic	CZ		Playwrite CZ	Playwrite Česko
Denmark	DK	Looped	Playwrite DK Loopet	Playwrite Danmark Loopet
Denmark	DK	Unlooped	Playwrite DK Uloopet	Playwrite Danmark Uloopet
England	GB	SemiJoined	Playwrite GB S	Playwrite England SemiJoined
England	GB	Joined	Playwrite GB J	Playwrite England Joined
France	FR	Traditionnelle	Playwrite FR Trad	Playwrite France Traditionnelle
France	FR	Moderne	Playwrite FR Moderne	Playwrite France Moderne
Germany	DE	Grundschrift	Playwrite DE Grund	Playwrite Deutschland Grundschrift
Germany	DE	LA	Playwrite DE LA	Playwrite Deutschland LA
Germany	DE	SAS	Playwrite DE SAS	Playwrite Deutschland SAS
Germany	DE	VA	Playwrite DE VA	Playwrite Deutschland VA
Hungary	HU		Playwrite HU	Playwrite Magyarország
Iceland	IS		Playwrite IS	Playwrite Ísland
Inddia	IN		Playwrite IN	Playwrite India
Indonesia	ID		Playwrite ID	Playwrite Indonesia
Ireland	IE		Playwrite IE	Playwrtie Ireland
Italy	IT	Tradizionale	Playwrite IT Trad	Playwrite Italia Tradizionale
Italy	IT	Moderna	Playwrite ITA Moderna	Playwrite Italia Moderna
Mexico	MX		Playwrite MX	Playwrite México
Netherlands	NL		Playwrite NL	Playwrite Netherland
New Zealand	NZ		Playwrite NZ	Playwrite New Zealand
Nigeria	NG	Modern	Playwrite NG Modern	Playwrite Nigeria Modern
Norway	NO		Playwrite NO	Playwrite Norge
Peru	PE		Playwrite PE	Playwrite Perú
Poland	PL		Playwrite PL	Playwrite Polska
Portugal	PT		Playwrite PT	Playwrite Portugal
Romania	RO		Playwrite RO	Playwrite România
Slovakia	SK		Playwrite SK	Playwrite Slovensko
South Africa	ZA		Playwrite ZA	Playwrite South Africa
Spain	ES		Playwrite ES	Playwrite España
Spain	ES	Decorative	Playwrite ES Deco	Playwrite España Decorativa
Tanzania	TZ		Playwrite TZ	Playwrite Tanzania
USA	US	Modern	Playwrite US Modern	Playwrite US Modern
USA	US	Traditional	Playwrite US Trad	Playwrite US Traditional
Vietnam	VN		Playwrite VN	Playwrite Việt Nam

Create or edit handwriting models

For creating new models or editing existing you can follow these steps:

1. (If needed) Add/modify glyphs to the source file.
2. (If needed) Add feature code (classes, substitutions, connections) to ./sources/features/Playwrite.fea.
3. Add the model recipe entry data to ./sources/data/models-all.csv

Now you are ready to build the new model fonts following the build instructions.