When he used to be doing the lettering for the tasks of classmates in boarding faculty in Rajasthan, Satya Rajpurohit had no inkling that this ability would lead him to go a design company that has evolved 450 font households for 20 writing techniques on this planet.
“I loved the inventive procedure however didn’t but needless to say this used to be a elementary side of kind design. Later, I was thinking about radium quantity plates for automobiles and motorcycles, which led me to experiment with customized letter shapes. I’d be offering this provider to my family and friends at no cost simply so I may see my lettering getting used. This used to be my accidental first step into public typography,” says the unassuming 40-year-old.
Satya co-founded Indian Sort Foundry (ITF) in 2009 in Ahmedabad.
“We began ITF with only one font circle of relatives (Fedra Hindi). Since then, we now have produced over 450 font households, together with 300 retail font households to be had for licensing and round 150 customized and open-source fonts. A few of our most well liked fonts are Kohinoor, Volte, Akhand, Poppins, Satoshi, Common Sans, Swatzer, Teko, and Hind,” he says.
Reworking typographic panorama with Indian languages
The company clocks an annual earnings of just about USD 2 million (Rs 16.48 crore roughly) and has round 300 purchasers from Fortune 500 corporations. Amongst its purchasers are giants — similar to Apple, Google, Samsung, Sony, Amazon, Hyundai, Unilever, Tata Play, Superstar Sports activities, SBI, Zee TV, Mahindra, Disney, Kotak, Discovery, and Aaj Tak.
In 2010, Satya gained the celebrated ‘SoTA Catalyst Award’ offered via the Society of Typographic Aficionados. He has been featured in Fortune India’s ‘40 Beneath 40’ listing for 3 consecutive years (2016, 2017 and 2018). In 2017, he used to be additionally on GQ India’s ‘50 Maximum Influential Younger Indians’ listing.
Lately, ITF is recognised as one of the vital main kind foundries globally, having evolved fonts for non-Indian languages — together with Thai, Cyrillic (Russian), Greek, Hebrew, Sinhalese and Korean.
Alternatively, what makes ITF particular is its focal point on Indian languages.
“Our project used to be to create a complete choice of top class fonts for Indian languages, pushed via a want for cultural preservation, innovation, and addressing the wishes of India’s numerous linguistic heritage,” says Satya.
The putting in place of ITF used to be the results of a collaboration with a Dutch typographer, Peter Bilak.
Peter introduced him the danger to design a Devanagari (Hindi) font for his corporate. “When this font used to be whole, we looked for foundries that might post it. Alternatively, there have been no foundries in India at the moment for Indian languages. This realisation brought on us to release our personal foundry with only one font in our library,” he relates.
The corporate secured Superstar Plus as one in every of its first purchasers, who approved its first Hindi font.
The huge linguistic range of India, with over 11 reputable writing techniques and a lot of languages, used to be in large part underserved via the worldwide typographic trade. Satya and Bilak spotted the loss of high quality and selection in fonts to be had for Indic languages when in comparison to the in depth choices for Latin scripts.
Growing fonts for Indian languages is more difficult than doing so for global languages, says Satya, as a result of Indian languages, not like Latin, are complicated to attract and feature higher personality units that require a number of months, and on occasion even years, to design.
Moreover, it’s exhausting to seek out seasoned designers who’re pleased with each the language and the kind design. The ‘matras’ in Indian languages upload to the complexity.
‘I can’t believe a unmarried day now not excited about fonts’
Satya’s oldsters sought after him to transform a physician; so he spent two years in Kota however didn’t transparent the assessments. That’s when he made up our minds to pursue his hobby in artwork as an alternative. He joined Chandigarh Faculty of Tremendous Arts, and whilst finding out there, he discovered concerning the Nationwide Institute of Design (NID), Ahmedabad. He then secured admission to the celebrated design institute.
“The 2 years at Kota have been the worst of my lifestyles. I used to be now not a just right pupil in school aside from in artwork. Even supposing I had cleared the clinical assessments and transform a physician, I might were a horrible physician as it used to be now not one thing I sought after to be,” says Satya with a rueful smile.
At NID, he were given considering movement graphics, one utility of which is developing titles and credit for movies. Alternatively, right here serendipity performed a key position. He “stumbled upon an surprising alternative” in his 3rd yr — an internship in kind design at Linotype, the pioneer in making high quality typefaces.
“That have used to be transformative. In the ones 3 months, I delved into the sector of typography, gaining an working out of its importance and intricacies. The enjoy ignited my hobby for kind design and reshaped my occupation trajectory,” explains Satya.
His internships at Linotype in Germany and Dalton Maag in the United Kingdom have been pivotal in getting ready him to arrange his personal challenge. They taught him the an important mix of precision and creativity wanted in kind design.
“I can’t believe a unmarried day now not excited about fonts. A font is a choice of letters, numbers and logos, all dressed up in a definite taste. After I design fonts, it’s like I’m designing outfits for phrases so they are able to specific other feelings and concepts,” stocks Satya.
Fonts have long-term worth. For example, Helvetica used to be first revealed in 1957, but this font stays related even as of late. ITF develops each conventional fonts (used for textual content in books and newspapers) and experimental or show fonts.
Conventional fonts, similar to Instances New Roman and Arial, prioritise clarity and flexibility. Against this, experimental fonts transcend capability and include cutting edge shapes, ideas and designs. Those fonts prioritise creative expression and invigorate visible design. They’ve numerous personality and are utilized in headlines, trademarks and posters. For sports activities occasions, youngsters’s books, and movie posters, ‘grunge’ (messy textual content) is used every now and then, he explains.
The corporate’s most well liked font is the Kohinoor collection designed via Satya. “Sooner than Kohinoor, there used to be no font that might give a boost to all Indian languages. For example, in an airport in Gujarat, we want signage in 3 languages — English, Hindi, and Gujarati. Fonts in a circle of relatives are aesthetically constant. Apple has approved the Kohinoor circle of relatives. If you happen to get a message in Hindi or Gujarati from an Apple instrument, the font will likely be from our Kohinoor collection,” says Satya.
By the way, the Kohinoor font circle of relatives is on show completely in London’s The Design Museum.
The inspirations and inventions using ITF
One of the crucial greatest demanding situations ITF confronted used to be the shortage of professional kind designers in India. Scholars and interns have been educated and added to the workforce. Lately. the workforce of 25 participants are unfold around the globe.
Any other important hurdle used to be cultivating a marketplace for fonts. Extra folks, together with scholars, are actually keen to spend money on high quality fonts, recognising their affect at the effectiveness of communique and branding.
The costs of ITF fonts vary from simply Rs 2,500 for a one-user desktop licence to a number of lakhs a yr for a big endeavor licence.
“At ITF, we provide loose licences to scholars and academics, aiming to give a boost to schooling and nurture the following technology of designers. In 2021, we introduced ‘Fontshare’, offering 25% of our retail font library at no cost, to make high quality fonts obtainable to everybody. Fontstore used to be envisaged as a market however recently, we promote handiest our personal fonts. High quality and royalty are two problems that arise if we promote fonts evolved via others,” he explains.
Aside from creating fronts from scratch, ITF additionally acquires fonts. Lately, it has received a number of unbiased foundries. “We’re at the cusp of launching a brand new umbrella-type foundry that may unite all our manufacturers. Our function is to amplify our retail library. A key focal point for us is making sure our library is inclusive, representing now not simply English or Indian languages but in addition the ones which are endangered and no more represented international.
Speaking about his inspirations within the sphere of typography, Satya names Adrian Frutiger — the Swiss kind fashion designer identified for his readability and capability in fonts like Univers and Frutiger — and Herb Lubalin — an inventive typographer who infused letters with emotion and narrative. Eric Gill’s harmonious mix of vintage and trendy types, obvious in typefaces like Gill Sans and Perpetua, has additionally guided his strategy to design.
Those pioneers have formed his working out of the way kind can keep up a correspondence past phrases, mixing artistry with application, says Satya.
Satya is the eldest amongst 3 brothers and one sister. His oldsters have settled down in Jodhpur. He’s glad that his a success challenge has enabled him to repay an important debt for his father and give a boost to his sister’s pursuit of a design occupation. Recently unmarried, he has been residing in Ahmedabad since 2004 when he joined NID.
He enjoys classical, Sufi, and Rajasthani folks track. Whilst he used to play sports activities at school, as of late he from time to time reveals time for video video games. He likes staring at motion pictures, most commonly Bollywood dramas and comedies. He prefers low-budget movies, which don’t function large stars — a contemporary favorite is ‘12th Fail’.
Relating to work-life stability, Satya says, “Working my very own trade presents me the versatility to paintings alone phrases. Additionally, I to find immense pleasure in what I do, which blurs the traces between paintings and recreational for me.”
Edited via Pranita Bhat