Output details

Sarkar Bengali typeface. Anandabazar Patrika, Kolkata, India.

This innovative typeface design seeks to address hitherto unresolved problems in the design of low-contrast (sanserif) Bengali fonts for newspaper publishing in print and on screen. The Bengali script is complex in formation. It is a connecting script of over 450, often very deep and sometimes very wide, letterforms that feature diagonal and spiralling elements and intersecting ascenders that are difficult to render by means of low-contrast strokes, particularly in a bold weight. The research involved assessing the outputs of early Indian typefoundries, manuscripts at the British Library and SOAS, and relevant publications held by the National Library of Kolkata. These led to proposals for character-set coverage and a stylistic approach relevant to contemporary editorial use. The applicability of these proposals was validated through discussions with the chief editor of the commissioning publisher in in Kolkata and through a type-design workshop held at Jadavapur University. The research, by identifying the contextual requirements of characters in the script and combining this analysis with sound knowledge of current font and composition technologies, has resulted in a typeface design that avoids many common failings in Bengali typesetting.