Elemaints - A Serif Family with Optical Sizes

A long time ago (2010) I have started a new typeface written in METAFONT (see http://www.typophile.com/node/73827). I interrupted the work because I had to investigate further in METAFONT and parametric type design (e.g. https//www.tug.org/TUGboat/tb37-3/tb117romer.pdf or https://tug.org/TUGboat/tb35-1/tb109romer.pdf or http://typedrawers.com/discussion/2342/funtauna-rectangular-slab-serif).
But I have never abandoned the original project and have always been working from time to time for this typeface. Taking the updated METAFONT sources, I have produced some master fonts. At the moment, work is concentrated on 2 of them: The display face and the tiny face.


I have refined both faces in Fontforge and have interpolated the optical axis Tiny-Caption-Regular-Subhead-Display:




The intended use of the typeface (which I call Elemaints) is the use in scientific texts. The glyph forms are mainly based on french renaissance antiquas like Sabon or Albertina. The x-height is equal to the x-height of Times New Roman. The proportions are very similar to Minion. Therefore, the look of Elemaints may resemble Minion, altough every single glyph was constructed freshly. One intended difference to other french renaissance antiquas may be the serifs, which always end rectangular:


Elemaints is not meant to be a revolution but a free antiqua with optical sizes for scientific texts.

Any suggestions (except kerning, which is not done yet) are welcome (glyph shapes, proportions, rhythm, details, spacing, ...).