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Here's something that surprises a lot of people: a mathematically perfect circle makes a bad lowercase "o." Because of an optical illusion, a true circle actually looks slightly off compared to flat-sided letters like "n" or "x" once it's set in real text. So type designers quietly flatten the curve, shift the stroke's thickest points, and add a small overshoot past the baseline, until the letter reads as balanced rather than technically perfect.
"o" also has one of the most stable histories of any letter — it traces back to a Phoenician symbol for "eye," and it's one of the only letters where the capital and lowercase forms are basically the same shape, just different sizes.
Because it's such a pure test of curve quality, "o" is often one of the very first letters a type designer draws, since its curve tension ends up shaping "c," "e," "a," and several other rounded letters in the same typeface.
This glyph series breaks down every letter like this. ✍️ #TypeDesign #Typography #FontDesign
Read more: https://letterhanna.com/lowercase-letter-o-design-and-history/