Meaning of a rule in the guideline

Question

I have hard time understanding the meaning of one phrase. I understand that this might be an open-ended question, but still maybe native speakers could make it a bit more clear.

This phrase is included in the guideline of a design contest (Morisawa type design competition).

Here is the exact phrase :

All of the characters shown on the sample Sheet A for the Latin category are to be regarded as the character set assigned for the Latin category entry.

Exact contents of "Sheet A" (just in case you ask):

ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZ&abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyz1234567890*!?.,:;‘’“”-

What I am trying to understand specifically:

Does this rule tell me that it is mandatory to submit the design of ALL of the presented characters?
How should I interpret this rule if I want to design only a subset of this set? For example if I submit my design, but omit punctuation marks, would that go against this rule or not, or is it actually not clear from this rule?

Note that there is no other mentions about character set at all in the guideline, this is the one and only phrase that addresses the character set.

Answer 1

With there being no other mention of character sets, I would assume that your font must include all of those characters. That's how I would interpret that as a specification in any situation, absent a clarifying definition. The only other meaning would be to specify that you couldn't include any other characters.

It could mean you can't include anything else, it could mean that you must include all of those, or it could mean both. I would work on the assumption that it means both in order to be sure that you have met the requirements.