Discipline

Hi all! Yet again, I am very slow to post. Luckily, one thing keeping me busy is that I've been getting an application ready to hopefully study type design this fall -- thanks SO MUCH to the friends who have been helping me with that process and encouraging me!

Sadly, the economic slowdown has finally hit the company where I work and I'll now have Fridays off! A blessing in disguise? At least I'll be able to devote more time to this blog! As well as actually starting to design some fonts, gosh darn it! Above, you will see lots of "ka" variations I've made while warming up my calligraphy pen. Feel free to chuckle. :)

I've also just met Pooja Saxena, another young designer hoping to design type someday! On her blog, I was happy to see her rows and rows of "a". I love knowing that there are others getting in touch with their inner scribe. Here's some inspiration - The Last Calligraphers trailer, a film about the staff of The Musalman, the last hand-written newspaper in Urdu. Has anyone seen the final film?! That would be neat to see!

Sign-wallahs

Image from Sign Wallahs, an article by Meena Kadri about the profession of graphics-painting. Pdf can be downloaded from LAB magazine.

Meena also has some AMAZING images of Indian graphics and daily life at her Flickr account, Meanest Indian. You'll see that she has collaborated with Indian sign painters in the works "Bollywood Soul" and "English of India". You can hear more about her from her interview at TypeRadio.

Hinglish!

Above image from WRITECLICK, blog of Deven Sensare of Umbrella Design, Mumbai.

After reading Erik's post about Indian SMS books, I was lucky enough to get in contact with Deven himself, and we were able to further discuss the digitization of Hindi and role of "Hinglish" in India. On his blog, he shows examples of billboards and graphics using Hindi written phonetically in Latin characters, an ongoing trend in India.

Hinglish makes no sense to the guy who can read Hindi, but not English. Neither to the guy who can read English but doesn't understand Hindi. Who is Hinglish talking to?

Hopefully, if we keep using the Google and Blogger Indic scripts buttons, keeping the online presence of these scripts strong, and designers keep pumping out new Indic typefaces and design solutions, hopefully the Indic scripts will be able to survive!! Cross your fingers, folks!

Deven, and his colleagues Bhupal Ramnathkar, Farhad F. Elavia, and Mangesh Zemse, have created the Facebook group, DESIgn, which will hopefully turn into a forum for people interested in Indian design. Join up, if you're on Facebook! Oooh, does an Orkut equivalent already exist? Is that still the predominant social networking site in India?

मैं थोड़ी हिंदी लिखने की कोशिश करती हूँ

Thanks again, Deven!

Tiny Telugu and Tamil Type

Hi, all! I've recently uploaded some quick snapshots from bibles found at the Minneapolis Public Library. Both included some of the smallest Indic type I've seen so far, as well as some interesting biblical maps with hand-lettering! Here is the Telugu set, and here the Tamil set. Not sure if this is of any interest to anyone, but I thought I'd share! You also get to see my fingernails! What fun!

I've also posted some Bengali script diagrams in a similar style as the Gurmukhi one posted earlier!

Perso-Arabic workshop at MCAD

Above, image from a Perso-Arabic workshop hosted by Erik Brandt and Leland Hill at my alma mater. Students photographed, drew, and manipulated characters to create some really interesting compositions! Check out the Geotypografika flickr set for more! I'm so very jealous.

Also please check out new friend Omid Hamooni's calligraphic work.

And, as always, sorry readers, for my slowness.