Nithya Ranjana
Description
The brief was to design a contemporary text typeface for the Ranjana script, which originated in the Indian subcontinent around the 11th century. Despite having a rich legacy of manuscript calligraphy, stone inscription, wood engraving and painting, Ranjana has had limited digital representation due to its complexity and lack of Unicode support. Our challenge was to balance its rich script heritage with contemporary requirements.
The typeface is designed in the style currently used in Nepal and is based on Devanagari and Newa unicode. It supports 750+ unique conjuncts used in Newari, Sanskrit and Pali. It includes an additional 500+ character-specific matra forms and matra-specific character forms to correctly and elegantly represent its many unique combinations. It has four stylistic sets: one each for alternate conjuncts and above base matras, and two for 40 Kutakshars (monogram-style word marks). It is ideal for historical, religious and contemporary usage.
