On ligatures - i love typography

ligature: Two or more letters joined together into a single letter or glyph. In some typefaces, character combinations such as “fi” and “fl” overlap, resulting in an unsightly shape. The “fi” and “fl” ligatures were designed to improve the appearance of these characters.

These are the most common ligatures, ff, fl, fi, ffi and ffl. A ligature is not simply two letters arbitrarily glued together. The two letters are crafted into a single letter (technically speaking a single glyph). Certain letter combinations are simply crying out for ligatures.

Above is an example of Mrs Eaves Just Ligatures, designed by Zuzana Licko of the Emigre Foundry

To read the full article named "Decline and Fall of the Ligature", published in i love typography, click here.
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