Abstract/Summary

Fiona Ross was commissioned by the renowned newspaper and publishing house Anandabazar Patrika (ABP) to design a new extra bold Bengali typeface to complement the existing ABP text typeface that was lacking a true headline weight. Fiona Ross and Tim Holloway had designed ABP's Bengali house typeface (Linotype Bengali – the first digital Bengali font) that has been in daily use in its newspaper since 1982, but which had been converted to OpenType format by a third party with some design compromises. In order to avoid such compromises in ABP Extra Bold Bengali, designed by Neelakash Kshetrimayum and Ross, reference was made to the original Linotype designs that had been underpinned by in-depth research of Bengali typeforms by Ross for her doctoral studies (See F. Ross, The Printed Bengali Character, Richmond, 1999). This new typeface, however, is augmented by additional characters required for contemporary newspaper composition – the font repertoire amounting to some 420 glyphs. Furthermore, it makes full use of twenty-first century OpenType technology, particularly by introducing contextual forms to enhance readability without necessitating copious interlinear spacing. Font production was undertaken by John Hudson of Tiro Typeworks. ABP Extra Bold was first employed on 17 February 2016 for the leading headline, and on other pages, in the publication of the newspaper Ananda Bazar Patrika. It continues to see daily use in this newspaper that enjoys a circulation of over one million Bengali readers.