14 Non-Latin Typefaces was a series of posters created to celebrate a bipartite exhibition and two-day conference on ‘Non-Latin Typeface Design’, jointly hosted by St Bride Library, London and the Department of Typography, University of Reading.

I worked on the project with the wonderful, hugely experienced typeface designer Fiona Ross. These typefaces were produced for Linotype in the UK, by teams headed by Walter Tracy in the 1970s and Fiona Ross in the 1980s. It is incredible to imagine that the beautiful graphic forms and non-latin characters you see below were each created and drawn by hand.

Script: Arabic; typeface: Linotype Yakout Bold

Script: Arabic; typeface: Linotype Qadi

Script: Arabic/Farsi; typeface: Linotype Nazanin Bold

On the posters, we featured the same character ‘ka’ (often the first consonant in non-Latin languages) in a white box on the top left corner. This, along with the script and typeface titles on the top right corner provided an index that grouped the 14 posters together. The main character showcased on the poster was chosen both for its characteristic as well as its representative shape. I chose bright, bold colours to suggest the flavour and vibrancy of these scripts.

The posters were printed by silkscreen on black handmade paper by Arumugam and his team at AMM Screens in Chennai, India.

Script: Arabic; typeface: Linotype Maged

Script: Bengali; typeface: Linotype Bengali Bold

Script: Devanagari; typeface: Linotype Rohini Bold

Script: Gujarati; typeface: Linotype Gujarati Bold

Script: Gurmukhi; typeface: Linotype Gurmukhi Bold

Script: Kannada; typeface: Linotype Kesari Bold

Script: Malayalam; typeface: Linotype Manorama Bold

Script: Sinhala; typeface: Linotype Araliya Bold

Script: Tamil; typeface: Linotype Samanti Bold

Script: Telugu; typeface: Linotype Tamara Bold

Script: Thai; typeface: Linotype Sukothai Bold

You can read Fiona’s paper on Non-Latin Typedesign at Linotype and a review of the exhibition by Eye magazine. You can also buy a copy of the exhibition catalogue from St Bride Library.

It was possibly my first real freelance job in Reading. I learnt a great deal from the process of working on these simple postcards which were later placed in various libraries and universities as hand-outs.

Having no ‘contacts’ or network in this new country I had chosen to call my home, I had to research and find available paper stocks and cards and find a printer who would be able to print the cards. The print run was small – just 1,000 in total – so we could not afford offset printing so I had to explore various printing options.

The first task however, was a design problem. John was keen on a contemporary yet crafts-based feel and preferred some kind of illustration or imagery rather than plain typography. He wanted to steer clear of the usual kitsch that accompanies such marketing material.

Being crap at illustration, I resolved the design problem by trolling through tons of good quality clip art online (yes, there is such a thing) and finding my final selection of possible images in the wonderful Briar Press archive (pointed out to me by fellow Reading student Ben Weiner). Here are some of those that we considered as possible images:

Rejected as it implies that the Book History Research Network is mainly about printing (which it is not)

Rejected because she looks really worried about joining the Book History Research Network

Rejected as it is too ‘Aubrey Beardsley’

Rejected for being too generic and directive (i.e. you must join the Book History Research Network!)

As it was a low-cost job, we chose to go with two-colour digital printing. Armed with Reading’s telephone directory and yellow pages, I rang around and asked for quotes. We finally settled on using a good quality printer in Caversham called Conservatree (whom I use till today and would recommend) who offered to do it at reasonable cost and was quick to respond to my query.

Front of the postcard

The entire job took 20 days from design concept to final production and delivery. I’m reasonably happy with the final product except for some horrific justified type on the back of the card. The quality of the digital printing is pretty damn good.

Back of the postcard

Importantly, I learnt some crucial lessons about freelance graphic design which are relevant no matter where you work:
1) Trust your contacts and network and ask them for recommendations. I would not have found Briar Press without Ben’s recommendation.
2) Be confident in approaching printers for quotes and samples. They are usually keen to establish a relationship and are  approachable. Go with the one who treats your job as valuable even if it is small budget.
3) Print your work to check it before it goes to final production. Test, test, test. Check, check, check. Clearly something I did not do for the back of the postcard!
4) Never underestimate the power of clip art.