Take a look at this

http://www.decodeunicode.org/u+012f

THis version is right aligned

There is also this
http://www.fileformat.info/info/unicode/char/012f/fontsupport.htm

Many of these are right aligned including Cambria Myriad & Consolas. Georgia is gently right aligned as is Gentium. Verdana seems left aligned. Palatino Courier New and Times seem centered. Some examples are hard to give an alignment to in some sense because the ogonek does not narrow. This doesn't seem right to me somehow but I am interested in opinion about that too.

One area of difference too is if the ogonek is to the right on the serif or, if the design includes one - the serif.

The diacritics project says Horizontally, the accent is never placed at the centre of the character (with the exception of į / Į and sometimes Ų, where this may occur)

From: http://diacritics.typo.cz/index.php?id=20

It seems to me that the trend is to set it to the right side either gently or more strongly. My guess is that that is what Adam suggested.

But I am curious to see what folks here say too because there doesn't seem to be a clear cut answer.

This is what mine looks like on a Monospace I am working on.

Hello Eben and Adam,

Thanks for the replies.
For the other ogonek glyphs I took the advice of ogonek glyphs on the website of Adam.
Iogonek and iogonek are not mentioned.
Here are all the ogonek glyphs from the typeface (in progress):

Pieter

This ogonek looks like it belongs to a face with far more stroke contrast. As I understand it, the ogonek should look like it was drawn with the same "pen" as the letters. So, yes, I think a better ogonek would meet both sides of the stroke, eliminating the gap, on the A as well as the i.

Hello Adam,

What do you think of the contrast of the ogoneks?

Pieter,

Thanks for you example. Now we have all three possibilities shown.

Well, maybe even all four with Jos' example of a thinker more sturdy Ogoneck.

Let's see what Adam says.

Thanks Jos and Adam,

I redesigned the ogoneks like Adam advised to draw them.
The part right from the point where the ogonek is attach to the base glyph is optical the same in the A, E and i.

Pieter

The right part of my ogonek is pointing up and the ones Jos drew for his typeface are pointing down. Are there any rules for it?

Sorry that should of course been 'thicker' not 'thinker'.

It has a nice optical balance between the ogonek and the glyphs. I think that the ogonek on E and e must be more to the right (all the way to the richt corner on E). I'ld make I and i the same (I is more to the right). Not that important maybe but there is a little difference in shapes: ogonek on for example e and E don't look quite the same to me...

You're very welcome :-)

Thanks, Adam. We always depend on your good advice on the ogonek.

ChrisL

Adam, would you have a look at this set?

Pieter,

I'd move the ogonek in Iogonek a tad to the right to give it a better optical balance, but other than that, I'm very pleased.

A.

Yes Thanks. I will have another go.

Eben,

A tad too thick but otherwise fine.

A.

Eben,

they sure can be shorter.

For those interested, below are some samples of sanserifs ogoneks that I designed in the recent years: for Jean F Porchez' Bienvenue (that is used by Poland's telecommunication company TP SA), for Helvetica World (the multilingual version of Helvetica that was extended by John Hudson and released a few years ago by Linotype, originally named Helvetica Linotype and later renamed Helvetica World), as well as for the new versions of Arial and Tahoma (that ship with Windows Vista and Mac OS X 10.5 Leopard). Unfortunately, Microsoft chose not to merge the outlines of the ogoneks with the base letters, which results in visible overlaps when the font is rendered on Mac OS X.

On the left, there are the ogoneks as can be seen in the older versions of the respective typefaces, on the right are the versions that I "retouched".

Adam

Adam, thanks. Do you have any serif examples that you've done?

BTW, regarding the width-to-height proportion of an ogonek, often the width-to-height proportion of average lowercase letters (e.g. e or a) is a good indication. In other words, you can draw a rectangle around you "a" (the bounding box), and then just scale it down to fit between the baseline and the descender, and align it optically to the right of the letter -- and you have a reasonable proportion for the ogonek. When the descenders are longer than usual, the ogoneks may be a bit shorter, especially in display faces. Also, in rather narrow typefaces, the ogonek may be a bit wider in proportion than the average letter (i.e. it can have the proportions of an "o" and not of an "a").

A.

For the sake of completeness, I'm including the ogonek shapes from Times New Roman. On the left the version designed years ago by Monotype that shipped with Windows until Windows XP, on the right the version that I designed that ships with Windows Vista:

Adam

Reflecting on Pieter's last posted example (Pieter van Rosmalen, 14.Nov.2007 12.08pm)
I had a quick idea. It's just a dirty tweak of his sample.

The top is the original posted by Pieter, the bottom modified according to my idea. ('A', 'E' and 'i' was modified).

I was wondering whether you deem this a viable solution for ogoneks on this sans, or whether you consider this a mutilation of the letters.

I kinda like it, the only slight doubts I have with the 'i', 'couse it seems less stable so (the A and E are "standing on their feet" all right).
But I'm asking your opinion, as you eyes are trained on Polish (and possibly Lithuanian? => I/iogonek) typography.

If it turns out to be OK and if I ever do a sans, I might come back to this idea...

Jos - jour sollution looks excellent!
Eben - you are very close. Your ogoneks descent a bit too much for me, but they have right form.
Pieter - your design is great and "polish friendly". Aszszelp proposes the form that is closer to the idea of ogonek - a tail that groes out from a glyph's body, but I am not sure what is better. I like both.

My opinions aren't opinions of a typographer. I just come from Poland.

Some additional comment by me on Ebens first monospaced font (Eben Sorkin, 13.Nov.2007 9.24am) where he attached the ogonek to the end of the "serif".

You (Adam) wrote: "I don’t think putting the ogonek at the very end of a serif works well. Serifs are not essential skeleton elements of the letter, so it’s logically inconsistent to attach something to them — and also, it does not work for me, optically. I do like Pieter’s solution." in reply.

IMHO you are right in your basic observation ("serifs are not essential skeleton elements of the lett" [I usually put this that way: they are not meaning-bearing elements of the letter, which is a similar concept; though this can shift in time]). Therefore ogoneks also IMHO _generally_ would not go at the end of the serifs. However in some cases as in (a) generally sans-serif fonts (if present: e.g. on the capital I) and even more so in (b) sans-serif monowidth fonts they become something hybrid... more than just decoration, actually, they do become part of the letters. They get upgraded, they appear as strong as the letter itself, usually with the same stroke width as horizontals in the letters generally are, and they begin to bear a meaning (differentiation I from l, more prominently than they do in roman serif fonts e.g.).
A lot of people even write the capital I when standing alone WITH the "serifs" unlike any other "regular" serif which get lost in handwriting.

Looking at Eben's later examples I figure that it is a sans-serif monowidth font with slight stroke weight alteration/dynamics and a double-storey a/g.

In this special case I thought it did not look wrong at the right side, as (for me) an ogonek is an attached character written at the end of the writing process of the individual letter. Of course, nonwithstanding, in roman serif fonts the attachment point for the iogonek would be more or less centered, as the serifs in that style are superimposed decorational elements.

I am ashamed to present this stuff, but I need someone's opinion.

The biggest problem I have is how to add the ogonek to my "blackletter" serif of "a".
Using the same template as for the rest of glyphs I would get a "big black ink dot" at the end of aogonek. I am not sure of my decision. Maybe I should redraw all ogoneks as it is in Scala Sans (more vertical beginning)?

Thanks.

Guys, I have just submitted a topic in the "Design" forum concerning capital U with Ogonek. If you are interested (c'mon, Ogonek issue), you might want to have a look at it:

http://typophile.com/node/46037

Be warned, the posting is pretty lengthish.

Szabolcs

Point nicely made Adam!

On a side note, can you imagine circumstances where you might want a contextual (CALT) ogonek? Like maybe an eogonek and a y. Or does it's position on the letter essentially free it from that kind of consideration?