combination I + J Noto Sans

[donderstorm]

Title

The latin combination I + J is looking odd

Font

NotoSans (all versions)

Font Version

• Mac - 1.04

Issue

The combination I + J (capitals) which is used in Dutch frequently is looking very odd because the I has serifs and the J doesn't.

Character data

IJ

Screenshot

[davelab6]

Maybe related to https://github.com/googlei18n/noto-fonts/issues/1002

[nizarsq]

This issue still reproducible on NotoSans and NotoSansMono

[raoulunger]

I completely agree. The IJ combination is a separate letter in Dutch (on old typewriters the combination even had its own key). The issue is very noticeable in The Netherlands as our main free (online) newspaper (nu.nl) uses Noto Sans as its principle font. Have a look for example at this screenshot of today about the (un)reliability of outdoor ice for skating:

There are many words in Dutch that start with IJ. We write the letter at the beginning of sentences by capitalizing both letters. That's where Noto Sans doesn't work well. The lower case ij has no problems.

Nu.nl is not overall a great example of good design choices (nor of a strong typographic conscience), but it makes the hiatus in the otherwise excellent Noto Sans quite visible. Would be great if the glyph could be added! As it will be a ligature (and should be applied automatically via the website's CSS sheet), the lowercase combination should probably also be added as a ligature. But I'm not an expert in the technicalities of digital (web) font design, so I might be wrong there.

Here you'll find some more in-depth further reading.