Nasalization has been updated to version 5.0. This time the structure of the family has been simplified. The expanded and condensed styles have been removed; they didn’t suit the NASA look. The outline, grunge, shaded, “galaxy” and striped styles have been removed as well. You can still keep the old effects styles installed but I recommend uninstalling all other styles before installing any new ones.
The first thing you’ll notice is that Nasalization now has a lowercase. It’s something that I’d attempted back in 2000 but this time I used a different approach. I gave the heavy weights a huge x-height and raised the ascenders past the cap height. That way the heavy, tight letters like a, e and s have some room to breathe while b, d, g and h ascenders don’t look stumpy. The weight range has been increased to 6. The desktop license for the regular style is still free. The new Nasalization Heavy is heavier than the previous version and is no longer missing an italic. Nasalization Light is now lighter. The old Light weight is similar to the new Book weight. There have been some long overdue stylistic changes. The ampersand is no longer a flipped 3 and it harmonizes with the new lowercase. The original K was created by turning the V sideways. While it looked unique, it was problematic in lighter weights and didn’t fit with the technological, pragmatic style of the old Nasa logo. The stroke of the R has been altered to harmonize with the new K. Some of the hard angles such as the top of the 5, have been slightly rounded in keeping with the flowing sensation of the old NASA logo.
Languages have been expanded quite a bit. Almost all Latin based languages are covered as well as Greek and extended Cyrillic. There are combining accents which can be used to make even more accented letters. There are more fractions and an OpenType feature which will allow you to make any fraction you like. All the latest monetary symbols have been added.
The previous version of Nasalization had some variations in the upper and lowercase character locations. For example, the lowercase A had a crossbar but the capital A did not. The default is now the barless A which resembles the Greek Lambda (Λ). You can turn on the A crossbar by using the OpenType stylistic alternates feature. If you application doesn’t support OpenType features, you can use a Greek Alpha. The leaning M and W are now automatically placed using OpenType contextual substitutions. In situations where neither type of leaning letter is appropriate, a new straight-sided form will be used. You can turn this feature off by disabling your application’s standard ligatures feature. In applications which don’t support OpenType, you can access the alternate M and W using Unicode addresses: E400, E401, etc.