Faux Arabic, Faux Chinese?

How do the Design Observer snobs think about Hindi speakers trying to mimic another script? Here's a discussion about type ethnicity and another specifically about Devanagari.

Topless!

Okay, I guess it wasn't as hard as I thought to find more "topless" type. Here are some extreeeemely varied examples.

Alphabet poster

Not enough time today to dig through my book cover images. I'll post this colorful alphabet poster!! Weee!

Crazy, bubbly proportions

Strange cover

It was really hard to find other books to accompany this... an outlined, "action" title with letters descending and - without the top line! Now I know that it's not absolutely essential for the script, but of course it really helps you make out the forms better.

Here's a little info on the top line from Wikipedia:

"A top line linking characters is thought represent the line of the page with characters historically being written under the line. In Sanskrit, words were originally written together without spaces, so that the top line was unbroken, although there were some exceptions to this rule. The break of the top line primarily marks breath groups. In modern languages, word breaks are used."

Devanagari "monoline script"

from Pustak.org

*I realize that all of my samples so far have been gritty low-res images. But the type is too cool not to post, darn it!

Hindi Red and yellow book series

Love these. Insane type and insane color. From Indian bookstore, Pustak.org

Hindi Medical books pt. 3

Hindi Medical books pt. 2

Hindi Medical books pt. 1

From http://www.medicalhousedelhi.com

I take it that most of these books were produced for Chikitsa

Typonerd notes: variations between looped and geometric maatras. especially cool is the needle guy cover - the first maatra turns into a frame for "rog" (?) and the second maatra runs through it!

Hi

I'm a graphic design gal interested in Indian culture and am hoping to someday create some Indic typefaces. I am learning Hindi right now, trying to familiarize myself with the forms and patterns of Devanagari. In order to get a better understanding of the typographic culture of the Hindi language, I've decided to start collecting samples of Devanagari type. It'll be a while until I can travel to India and see some in the flesh, but I know there are a bunch of amazing images to be found on the good ol' internets.

I hope to someday think of a satisfactory way to categorize my finds, but for now I'm going to use the first descriptive words to pop into my head, and make a bunch of tags for each post. Let me know if you know of a better way!

Anyhoo, here it goes!