Fonts for classical texts in a digital age
- Submitting institution
-
The University of Reading
: B - Typography and Graphic Communication
- Unit of assessment
- 32 - Art and Design: History, Practice and Theory : B - Typography and Graphic Communication
- Output identifier
- 86578
- Type
- T - Other
- DOI
-
-
- Location
- -
- Brief description of type
- Typeface Design
- Open access status
- -
- Month
- -
- Year
- 2017
- URL
-
-
- Supplementary information
-
-
- Request cross-referral to
- -
- Output has been delayed by COVID-19
- No
- COVID-19 affected output statement
- -
- Forensic science
- No
- Criminology
- No
- Interdisciplinary
- No
- Number of additional authors
-
0
- Research group(s)
-
-
- Proposed double-weighted
- No
- Reserve for an output with double weighting
- No
- Additional information
- This research project and its outcomes originate from a commission received in 2012 from Harvard University Press (HUP) to design original typefaces for its prestigious newly established Murty Classical Library of India (MCLI). The brief was to design and produce five Indian-script typefaces (for seven languages) for its volumes of facing-page translations of classical Indian literary texts. In line with the MCLI’s mission, it was specified that the typefaces were to be designed to reach a wide international readership: their style should appeal to modern young readers, and also be appreciated by scholars of Indian literature.
The design was a collaboration between Fiona Ross and John Hudson: Ross leading the research and art direction; Hudson being responsible for the final digital outlines and font production.
The typefaces comprise: Murty Hindi, Murty Gurmukhi and Murty Telugu, completed in 2014 for typesetting and printing of three volumes published with MCLI’s launch in 2015; followed by Murty Sanskrit (2016), Murty Bangla and Murty Kannada (2017).
The fonts that resulted from this challenging project are the first set of digital fonts in this range of scripts to be harmonious in design and dimensions; are able to reproduce classical Indian texts with accuracy, some for the first time; adopt a contemporary approach to the design in applying a modern treatment to classical proportions, exploit the most recent technological advances in OpenType font formats to achieve high-quality output; are the first such set which contains extensive character sets for full language coverage (and a companion Latin with relevant transliteration marks for scholarly translations), and are available free of charge for non-commercial purposes.
- Author contribution statement
- -
- Non-English
- No
- English abstract
- -