Abstract/Summary

Fiona Ross and John Hudson (co-designers) were commissioned by Harvard University Press to design an original typeface in the Telugu script for the prestigious Murty Classical Library of India series. In line with other specially commissioned Indian-script typeface designs for this project, the brief was to provide high-quality readable type that would render the classics accessible to a wide readership world-wide, i.e. to young readers as well as scholars of Indian literature. Murty Telugu was first employed for the publication of the classical text of the Allasani Peddana, The Story of Manu (HUP, 2015). It relied on intensive research to achieve a well-crafted contemporary design that utilises current type-making technology to overcome customary challenges in providing balanced, well-spaced Telugu texts. The typeface is inspired by the metal types of the Swatantra Type Foundry in the shaping of the counters and the relatively high degree of stroke modulation for Telugu letterforms. Following the manuscript tradition, subscript letters are larger than in many fonts, making them more legible in text. Murty Telugu is now available, free of charge, for non-commercial use from the Murty Classical Library of India website.