Dear Bianca,
Why do some emoji slant with the text when you italicize it while others do not?
Thanks, Indra

 
Dear Indra,

Why would you italicize emoji to begin with? To convey speed? To emphasise emotion? To not have them clash with text?

In any case, I think it’s down to OS and application you use. A quick test showed that faux italic emoji are generally available and I couldn’t find exceptions to the rule apart from Slack’s menu which gladly slants fire but not couches for no apparent reason.

As we all know faux styles happen because the chosen variation of a font is not (or not yet) available. In this case, there’s simply no italic version of your emoji (type)face. Instead of falling back onto a different font family in which this style exists (not that there is one), it pretends there is an italic by brute slanting the glyphs. The other option would be to just keep displaying the upright emoji.

Curiously, faux bold didn’t work in all my testing environments and resulted in very odd behaviour in some. Tells you a lot about faux bold algorithms.

I’m guessing it’s only a matter of time until we see the first true italic and bold emoji fonts. For better or for worse.

The future is bright.
Bianca

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Dear Sahar,
I have some stupid, noob Arabic questions. I’m trying to set a short text for Syrians. What style of Arabic do they usually use? Naskh? Or can everyone read all the different styles (not like in India)?
I’m looking for a typeface that goes reasonably well with a grotesque. From those that come with Mac OS X or other apps, which one would you recommend or do most Arabic readers regard the best?
Thanks, Indra

 
Hello Indra,
it’s not like with Indic scripts, so no worries there. All the different styles are readable to whoever knows the script. I try to avoid all those simplified looking styles. Adobe Arabic is my favourite go-to system font. It’s very clear and legible and seems to be equally liked by people from different regions.
Best, Sahar

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