so you've got a fount of Monotype 587 Georgian in 12D and an empty job case, but don't know where to put all the letters. well, neither do i, though i'm willing to give it a try and bear the brunt of rearranging the case if i find it to be unintuitive.
historical options
at present, i have no sources or layouts for actual typesetters living in Georgia or having a native-level command of Georgian, so it's likely that the cases below are not what one would find in a printshop in Tbilisi in 1915. the following two layouts are from the Imprimerie Nationale's 1885 book of case layouts, Modèles de casses des caractères de l'Imprimerie nationale.
propaganda fide
16pt
this layout follows alphabetically from ა in the bottom right, upwards, including ligatures and alternative forms.
delafond
you'll note two instances where the character is marked with er.. these appear to be simply duplicates, thus er indicated "erreur", but i'm not sure if that is an error in the printing or an error in filling out the case.
9pt
follows alphabetically, starting with ა in the bottom right of the left partition, continuing upwards, extending into the right partition.
12-14pt
a 16pt cut by Delafond also exists, however, is not shown. this case layout follows letter sounds, but not frequency. depending on how the text was given to the compositors, this may have been the most expedient method as it reduces the number of new hand movements they would need to make.
my design
i tried to approach this with two things in mind:
- frequency is worth trying to adhere to. this was derived from the (admittedly somewhat handwavy) proportions of sorts for the initial fount i got.
- some logical nature to where it has to break alphabetic ordering. i decided that given the number of ejective pairs in Georgian (ქ/კ, ფ/პ, etc.), those were worth keeping. you can see this on the right side: ejective consonant is on the bottom, non-ejective on top.
other things worth mentioning: like the two historical faces, this includes some historical characters, which i've placed in the smallest boxes for now. these may move to the uppercase side of the case if it turns out to be more expedient to have more modern letters available. the უ^ is an artifact of Monodraw, it is for უ̂.
appendix
maybe you want to make your own case layout? here is a Monodraw file and a text-only file that has a blank California job case that you can play with.
last updated: 2025-06-28 19:10:36