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!

Illustrative Tamil type and lettering

Oh my goodness! I recommend everyone visit AnyIndian.com, an online Tamil bookstore, and check out the amazing book cover scans! I could click for days! So many great display fonts and lettering! And then buy something, too ;) I'm sure I'll post many more from this site. Pure bliss!

Also, a quick Hindi Rinny Hooray to our pal, Mr. Dan Reynolds for his recent Type Director's Club "Certificate of Typographic Excellence in Type Design" for Malabar, the Latin component of Martel, his University of Reading design that contains a Devanagari character set.

And, those of you in the Minneapolis-St. Paul area, be sure to stop by the Walker Art Center next Tuesday, March 10th at 7pm for what is sure to be a great typography lecture hosted by Eric Olson and Nicole Dotin of Process Type Foundry.

very old Tamil type

"One of the oldest printed samples of a Tamil foundry type in Europe."

* Image by Fernando de Mello Vargas, U of Reading graduate and designer of the award-winning Tamil typeface, Frida

See more here. I love piggybacking off of the University of Reading type design students! Huzzah!

2,700 Indian fonts - wow!

Wowzers, another great Indian type catalog, from Modular Infotech - that claims to be the largest one available - and can be downloaded via .pdf specimens. A great resource to begin comparing and contrasting letterforms and to see what's available in the world of fonts. Some Hindi display fonts are seen above.

Also, check out this previous post for more type.

Sinhalese palm-leaf manuscripts

In order to better understand the origins of the letterforms of South Asian scripts, I've been searching for the earliest writings and printing samples I can find. In contrast to the calligraphic forms of handwritten Sanskrit, the Dravidian scripts of South South Asia are distinctively curved and don't seem to have been originally created by same writing implement. So I was delighted to find a GREAT article about the creation of palm-leaf manuscripts - and how Sinhalese was written onto the leaves!

" The scribe, usually a monk or a scholar, uses a stylus for writing. The scribe places the leaf strip on the palm of hand, as it is easier to gauge the pressure needed for writing. The letters are written from left to right and the scribe uses the parallel lines of the veins of the leaf to guide him to write straight."

"The letters etched with the stylus are colourless and therefore difficult to read. So it has to be ‘inked’ in a special manner. ... Leaf surface is rubbed with a wad of soft cotton cloth dipped in the resinous oil and ... with charcoal. ... The letters on the palm leaf then appears dark black and the words are distinct and easy to read."

I assume that using more curved forms was the best way to prevent the leaf from cracking along the veins. I'll dig into this further!

Long before papermaking made its journey to India, religious and scientific texts were written on these amazing portable manuscripts. I'm sure you'll see many more here as I begin to track down the origins of other scripts!

Images and other links here!

Type designs from MA students at the University of Reading

I love how the type design community is small enough that almost everyone is connected in some way! So, I was looking through flickr images the other day and I found photos from a group of students who were students at the University of Reading MA in type design. - I clicked through some links, and ultimately found specimens of the typefaces they designed. And lo and behold, my teacher Nicole Dotin was in their class! And, to make things even dandier, three of the students had designed typefaces that had accompanying South Asian faces!!!

Above is Surat, a Gujarati design by David Brezina.
Vesper, a Devanagari typeface by Rob Keller.
and Frida, a Tamil typeface by Fernando de Mello Vargas.

Absolutely beauuutiful designs! Download the pdfs to get a closer look!
Also check out the previous class - someone made an Arabic face, another chose Tibetan!

Stenciled type

some amazing script examples from flickr.

world scripts goldmine

phew!! This scripture site has loads of hundred-year-old bible pages in native languages from all over the world. It's so great to see actual old printed specimens of these languages! I think I saved about 60 pictures from that site. Check it out, for real. (above are Nepali, Bengali, and Tamil)

languages!

Marathi | Gujarati
Kannada | Tamil
Telugu | Malayam
Urdu | Bengali

from peta-india posters

evolution of Tamil, in Tamil

jackpot!!!!!

YESSSSS
check it out!!!!!
TONS of the fonts I've seen on the book covers.
FINALLY I've found a significant collection of fonties!!!!
http://www.cdac.in/html/gist/down/typeface.asp

das rupaye

the many languages printed on Indian currency

Writing systems map

From UPenn