When he was doing the lettering for the initiatives of classmates in boarding college in Rajasthan, Satya Rajpurohit had no inkling that this talent would lead him to go a design agency that has developed 450 font households for 20 writing programs on this planet.
“I loved the inventive course of however didn’t but perceive that this was a basic side of kind design. Later, I turned fascinated with radium quantity plates for automobiles and bikes, which led me to experiment with customized letter shapes. I’d provide this service to my family and friends without cost simply so I may see my lettering getting used. This was my unintended first step into public typography,” says the unassuming 40-year-old.
Satya co-founded Indian Sort Foundry (ITF) in 2009 in Ahmedabad.
“We began ITF with only one font household (Fedra Hindi). Since then, we’ve got produced over 450 font households, together with 300 retail font households accessible for licensing and round 150 customized and open-source fonts. A few of our hottest fonts are Kohinoor, Volte, Akhand, Poppins, Satoshi, Basic Sans, Swatzer, Teko, and Hind,” he says.
Remodeling typographic panorama with Indian languages
The agency clocks an annual income of near USD 2 million (Rs 16.48 crore roughly) and has round 300 shoppers from Fortune 500 corporations. Amongst its shoppers are giants — resembling Apple, Google, Samsung, Sony, Amazon, Hyundai, Unilever, Tata Play, Star Sports activities, SBI, Zee TV, Mahindra, Disney, Kotak, Discovery, and Aaj Tak.
In 2010, Satya acquired the celebrated ‘SoTA Catalyst Award’ introduced by the Society of Typographic Aficionados. He has been featured in Fortune India’s ‘40 Underneath 40’ listing for 3 consecutive years (2016, 2017 and 2018). In 2017, he was additionally on GQ India’s ‘50 Most Influential Younger Indians’ listing.
In the present day, ITF is recognised as one of many main kind foundries globally, having developed fonts for non-Indian languages — together with Thai, Cyrillic (Russian), Greek, Hebrew, Sinhalese and Korean.
Nevertheless, what makes ITF particular is its deal with Indian languages.
“Our mission was to create a complete assortment of premium fonts for Indian languages, pushed by a want for cultural preservation, innovation, and addressing the wants of India’s various linguistic heritage,” says Satya.
The organising of ITF was the results of a collaboration with a Dutch typographer, Peter Bilak.
Peter provided him the possibility to design a Devanagari (Hindi) font for his firm. “When this font was full, we looked for foundries that might publish it. Nevertheless, there have been no foundries in India at the moment for Indian languages. This realisation prompted us to launch our personal foundry with only one font in our library,” he relates.
The corporate secured Star Plus as one in all its first shoppers, who licensed its first Hindi font.
The huge linguistic range of India, with over 11 official writing programs and quite a few languages, was largely underserved by the worldwide typographic trade. Satya and Bilak seen the shortage of high quality and selection in fonts accessible for Indic languages when in comparison with the intensive choices for Latin scripts.
Creating fonts for Indian languages is tougher than doing so for world languages, says Satya, as a result of Indian languages, not like Latin, are complicated to attract and have bigger character units that require a number of months, and generally even years, to design.
Moreover, it’s onerous to seek out seasoned designers who’re snug with each the language and the kind design. The ‘matras’ in Indian languages add to the complexity.
‘I can’t think about a single day not interested by fonts’
Satya’s mother and father wished him to turn out to be a health care provider; so he spent two years in Kota however didn’t clear the exams. That’s when he determined to pursue his curiosity in artwork as an alternative. He joined Chandigarh Faculty of Superb Arts, and whereas learning there, he realized concerning the Nationwide Institute of Design (NID), Ahmedabad. He then secured admission to the celebrated design institute.
“The 2 years at Kota had been the worst of my life. I used to be not scholar at college besides in artwork. Even when I had cleared the medical exams and turn out to be a health care provider, I might have been a horrible physician as a result of it was not one thing I wished to be,” says Satya with a rueful smile.
At NID, he obtained desirous about movement graphics, one software of which is creating titles and credit for movies. Nevertheless, right here serendipity performed a key position. He “stumbled upon an sudden alternative” in his third yr — an internship in kind design at Linotype, the pioneer in making high-quality typefaces.
“That have was transformative. In these three months, I delved into the world of typography, gaining an understanding of its significance and intricacies. The expertise ignited my ardour for kind design and reshaped my profession trajectory,” explains Satya.
His internships at Linotype in Germany and Dalton Maag within the UK had been pivotal in making ready him to arrange his personal enterprise. They taught him the essential mix of precision and creativity wanted in kind design.
“I can’t think about a single day not interested by fonts. A font is a group of letters, numbers and symbols, all dressed up in a sure type. After I design fonts, it’s like I’m designing outfits for phrases to allow them to categorical totally different feelings and concepts,” shares Satya.
Fonts have long-term worth. As an illustration, Helvetica was first printed in 1957, but this font stays related even as we speak. ITF develops each conventional fonts (used for textual content in books and newspapers) and experimental or show fonts.
Conventional fonts, resembling Occasions New Roman and Arial, prioritise readability and flexibility. In distinction, experimental fonts transcend performance and embrace modern shapes, ideas and designs. These fonts prioritise creative expression and invigorate visible design. They’ve a variety of character and are utilized in headlines, logos and posters. For sports activities occasions, kids’s books, and movie posters, ‘grunge’ (messy textual content) is used at instances, he explains.
The corporate’s hottest font is the Kohinoor sequence designed by Satya. “Earlier than Kohinoor, there was no font that might help all Indian languages. As an illustration, in an airport in Gujarat, we’d like signage in three languages — English, Hindi, and Gujarati. Fonts in a household are aesthetically constant. Apple has licensed the Kohinoor household. Should you get a message in Hindi or Gujarati from an Apple machine, the font might be from our Kohinoor sequence,” says Satya.
By the way, the Kohinoor font household is on show completely in London’s The Design Museum.
The inspirations and improvements driving ITF
One of many largest challenges ITF confronted was the shortage of expert kind designers in India. College students and interns had been skilled and added to the workforce. In the present day. the workforce of 25 members are unfold throughout the globe.
One other important hurdle was cultivating a marketplace for fonts. Extra individuals, together with college students, at the moment are keen to spend money on high quality fonts, recognising their impression on the effectiveness of communication and branding.
The costs of ITF fonts vary from simply Rs 2,500 for a one-user desktop licence to a number of lakhs a yr for a big enterprise licence.
“At ITF, we provide free licences to college students and academics, aiming to help training and nurture the following technology of designers. In 2021, we launched ‘Fontshare’, offering 25% of our retail font library without cost, to make high-quality fonts accessible to everybody. Fontstore was envisaged as a market however presently, we promote solely our personal fonts. High quality and royalty are two points that come up if we promote fonts developed by others,” he explains.
Aside from creating fronts from scratch, ITF additionally acquires fonts. Not too long ago, it has acquired a number of unbiased foundries. “We’re on the cusp of launching a brand new umbrella-type foundry that may unite all our manufacturers. Our aim is to increase our retail library. A key focus for us is making certain our library is inclusive, representing not simply English or Indian languages but in addition these which might be endangered and fewer represented worldwide.
Speaking about his inspirations within the sphere of typography, Satya names Adrian Frutiger — the Swiss kind designer identified for his readability and performance in fonts like Univers and Frutiger — and Herb Lubalin — a inventive typographer who infused letters with emotion and narrative. Eric Gill’s harmonious mix of traditional and fashionable types, evident in typefaces like Gill Sans and Perpetua, has additionally guided his method to design.
These pioneers have formed his understanding of how kind can talk past phrases, mixing artistry with utility, says Satya.
Satya is the eldest amongst three brothers and one sister. His mother and father have settled down in Jodhpur. He’s blissful that his profitable enterprise has enabled him to repay a major debt for his father and help his sister’s pursuit of a design profession. At present single, he has been residing in Ahmedabad since 2004 when he joined NID.
He enjoys classical, Sufi, and Rajasthani people music. Whereas he used to play sports activities at school, as we speak he often finds time for video video games. He likes watching motion pictures, largely Bollywood dramas and comedies. He prefers low-budget movies, which don’t function massive stars — a current favorite is ‘12th Fail’.
Concerning work-life steadiness, Satya says, “Operating my very own enterprise affords me the pliability to work by myself phrases. Additionally, I discover immense pleasure in what I do, which blurs the strains between work and leisure for me.”
Edited by Pranita Bhat