Abstract/Summary

John Hudson and Fiona Ross (co-designers) were commissioned by the Microsoft Corporation to review and extend a Sanskrit typeface originally created by the Monotype Corporation prior to the digital era. Based on Ross’s postgraduate Sanskrit studies and subsequent typographic research and practice, it was realised that the original typeface required extensive redesign work and expansion in order to enable an accurate representation of the Sanskrit language in the Devanagari script. The character proportions required complete revision, particularly those of the most complex characters, as well as the stroke weight and modulation. With the knowledge that Sanskrit texts have few word breaks and make frequent use of vertically stacked consonantal combinations (conjuncts), great attention was paid to the character fitting (spacing) to ensure good readability. Vedic symbols and marks were also added, and complex mark contextual adjustments facilitated by current OpenType software embedded in the resulting font comprising over 1000 Devanagari characters, thereby rendering this typeface suitable for a variety of literary, religious and other Sanskrit compositions.