Tactile Typography
Typographic installations made with everyday materials.
Calligrapher Pradnya Naik and I were invited to be a part of Typoday 2017, Sri Lanka. We conducted a Tact-Type workshop combining everyday materials with local scripts. Typoday is a design conference which is a celebration of Indian typography, calligraphy and font design. Designers, students and agencies from all over Asia and beyond come to attend this conference. Typography Day 2017, took place in Sri Lanka hosted by the University of Moratuwa, Colombo.
Neither of us were familiar with the Sinhalese script, and we wanted to work with locally available materials.This resulted in us spending a few weeks before the workshop studying the script and its letterforms. We were also trying to get an understanding of what type of materials would be easily available in Sri Lanka. During the last leg of our planning we combined what we had learnt over the past month, into explorations. For the workshop we decided to work with sand and kolam powder . We focused on juxtaposing the meaning of a word with the quality of the materials creating a new and suggestive pictorial language
The groups had to explore different materials and techniques.
While both groups had references to the Sinhalese scripts, some had additional references of local patterns and motifs as well.
The participants had to consider the challenge of writing in the local script and choosing appropriate words that also reflect the qualities of the material being explored.
At every stage the selected word, the execution technique and the material that was being used had to align.
A quick demonstration of writing the word 'Samsara' in sand. The word means to exist and then get destroyed.
Pradnya making a sketch of the Sinhalese word 'Saral' meaning simple.
This group opted to write the word Buddha, as it is a connecting point between India and Sri Lanka.
They are sketching out the letterform in a proportionately larger size, in the given space.
Here they are creating multiple scripts inside a script using sand, as the medium.
In this image you can see the letters 'B' and the 'D' .
One level of the word 'Sarlya' written in Sinhalese, completed.
Creating an additional thickness and outline to the existing font.
By exploring different thicknesses of the letterform through materials, this participant created another version of it.
The facilitators, participants and volunteers.
