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Is there a font that displays the entire image of each and every one of the 52 English alphabet shapes "a" ➝ "z" and "A" ➝ "Z" above (on) the baseline?

Clarification:

  • Examples of shapes that are rejected due to baseline overflow:

    enter image description here

  • Some users had stated that this is not possible. But it is possible. I've thought of at least two solutions:

    1. The tail could sent upwards instead of downwards.

    2. The tail could be shortened and the entire alphabet shifted upwards, as such (yes my drawing is awkward, but that's the idea):

enter image description here

  • I only need a font that supports the basic English alphabets "a" ➝ "z" and "A" ➝ "Z", but it's great if it could support arabic numerals 0 ➝ 9 too.
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  • The comments are getting too excessive so I have moved them all to chat here
    – user9447
    Sep 13, 2014 at 17:33
  • Didn't see this before and the chat is locked. Probably too late but what were you trying to typeset an Ad or a Book/Magazine? And were you using InDesign or something else?
    – Ryan
    Mar 13, 2015 at 13:18
  • @Ryan, I'm not using InDesign. I need these glyphs to be inserted into a system which will take the glyphs and align them together with surrounding text. The glyphs are rendered starting from the baseline of the surrounding text. In other words, I need glyphs that have no baseline overflow. If the glyphs are of a font that has baseline overflow (like almost 99.99% of fonts), they would appear "bumpy", unpleasing to the eye, and unreadable.
    – Pacerier
    Mar 13, 2015 at 15:17

2 Answers 2

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Hobo, designed as early as 1910, is a no-descender font:

basic character set of Hobo

Caveat: with its design heavily influenced by the Art Nouveau style of the 1890s-1920s, it is not useful for general application.

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  • Would using a few (around one line worth) of these characters constitute to fair use? Or would a license be needed even for using a few characters?
    – Pacerier
    May 26, 2015 at 3:33
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    That depends on too many factors. I don't think I can say anything conclusive on licensing.
    – Jongware
    May 26, 2015 at 8:31
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Ok, I'll answer as a font designer: I think you need to have the font designed or design it to meet your requirements.

In the image you are submitting of what you're looking for, the lowercase "g" and "y" (etc) are not typographically "correct", meaning, they do not respect typographical conventions for lowercase letters and are not pleasing to the eye of typographers, and would not validate.

So, either have a font designed (or design it yourself) because I cannot see what a lowercase "g" - for example would look like and still be agreeable to read.

Another option would be to use "small" capital letters instead of lowercase letters (check out a font like "bank gothic" or "Copperplate" to understand what I mean). Clearly, the readers would perceive a difference in font sizes (you could even use a bold font for the capitals and a regular smaller font for the lowercase), but each glyph would look "good" and acceptable.

Bank Gothic font and its minicaps

Copperplate font family and its minicaps

If I had to design a font that meets your requirements, I would probably use "standard" lowercase glyphs for every letter that doesn't have a descender (a, b, c, d, e, f, h, i...) and use a minified capital letter for the letters with a descender (g, j, etc). But you would soon see that for example a small "Q" and a "d" with an ascender would not look like they belong to the same font unless they are designed to do so. And that would mean making every font with an ascender (b, f, h...) look also like a small capital...

example of what one would try to do but would soon realise the whole foont needs to be designed to meet requirements and graphical homogeneity

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  • What about Hobo -- which I find very agreeable to read?
    – Jongware
    Apr 25, 2015 at 23:49
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    Absolutely, why not! It conveys ideas of modernism and the art nouveau period (20s, 30s). I don't know if that's what you're looking for, but if it is, great! Otherwise, the design of this font could totally serve as a base for a font that you could design or have someone design for you.
    – MicroMachine
    Apr 25, 2015 at 23:51
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    @Jongware, Thanks, you could post that as answer. How did you manage to find that font?
    – Pacerier
    May 24, 2015 at 22:45
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    @fabriced, Btw what do you mean when you say "would not validate"?
    – Pacerier
    May 24, 2015 at 22:45
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    @fabriced: it was included in a set of fonts that came with a new 1000 dpi laser printer in the early 90s. Its curious design struck me, and I've always recognized it afterwards. Due to its strong time period ties, I don't think I've ever used it.
    – Jongware
    May 25, 2015 at 0:25

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