Alternative glyphs for a few characters e.g. lowercase a. lowercase i, lowercase k, lowercase r, digit 3 and 0

[jothefiredragon]

I wish there could be alternative glyphs for a few characters, such as:

1. single-storey lowercase a - currently, only double-storey lowercase a is available
2. lowercase i with a horizontal line extending from the bottom to the left and right - currently, only lowercase i without such horizontal line is available
3. lowercase k with a loop (as in the italic lowercase k of IBM Plex Mono/Lilex) - currently, only non-looped lowercase k is available
4. lowercase r with a horizontal line extending from the top to the left and lowercase r with two horizontal lines, extending from the top as well as from the bottom to the left and right - currently, only lowercase r that looks like most other sans-serif lowercase r is available
5. digit 3 with serration - currently, only 3 without serration is available
6. normal-slashed digit 0 - currently, only reverse-slashed 0, dotted 0 and plain 0 are available

Thank you very much in advance for your consideration.

[jenskutilek]

About the single-storey a and the k with loop – do you mean in italic, or in the upright styles as well?

[jothefiredragon]

I highly appreciate your consideration. Here is my detailed opinion on each of those alternate glyph proposals.

1. single-storey lowercase a
   While I do think that single-storey lowercase a is fine in large sizes, in small size it's too easy to mix them up with lowercase o and thus I'm of the opinion that double-storey lowercase a should be the default in both upright style and italic style. As for Sudo, I think that the typeface should keep the double-storey lowercase a as the default in both upright style and italic style, and let single-storey lowercase a be optional in both styles.

2. lowercase k with a loop
   This is an interesting question, I suppose that k with a loop as default italic style wouldn't hurt as there's not really any character that k with a loop can be mistaken as. Though I'm not opposed to keeping the default k as is and letting k with a loop be optional in both styles either.

Also I might as well state my opinion on the rest of the glyph proposals.

2. lowercase i with a horizontal line extending from the bottom to the left and right
   I personally think that this design of lowercase i is the most iconic design among monospace typefaces. In my honest opinion, Sudo should have this as default in both upright and italic styles. (Though I'm not opposed to keeping the default i as is and letting such i be optional in both styles either.)

3. lowercase r with a horizontal line extending from the top to the left and lowercase r with two horizontal lines, extending from the top as well as from the bottom to the left and right
   In my honest opinion, Sudo should have lowercase r with two horizontal lines as default in both upright and italic styles. (Though I'm not opposed to keeping the default r as is and letting r with two horizontal lines be optional in both styles, as well as r with one horizontal line be optional in both styles.)

4. digit 3 with serration
   I'm not the biggest fan of digit 3 with serration but this serrated style seems rather popular among monospace fonts these days as Twilio Sans Mono, Jetbrains Mono and Intel One Mono all have digit 3 with serration as default so I think that Sudo should at least have 3 with serration as an option.

5. normal-slashed digit 0
   The typeface Lexica Ultralegible, a typeface based on Atkinson Hyperlegible, keep the latter's reversed-slashed zero as default but provided normal-slashed zero as optional glyph to avoid the possibility of cognitive dissonance problem in some people. Thus I think that Sudo should do the same. That said I don't think that the default zero in Sudo (reverse-slashed zero) need to be replaced. In fact, I wish that more fonts would adopt reverse-slashed zero as default zero, regardless of whether that font is monospace or proportional.

Again, thank you very much for your consideration.