C-DAC: Events & Conferences - National Workshop on Calligraphy and Typography

India has a glorious heritage of calligraphy with a rich and varied tradition of craftsmanship on palm-leaf, metal and stone. The Gutenberg Galaxy tried its best to capture the beauty of shapes and designs. With the advent of the Digital Age and the tools placed at the disposal of artists, a new era in Calligraphy and Typography has dawned.

In the 21 century fonts have gone beyond the pale of what can be termed as mere design and using tools to create an aesthetic font. The font creator has to be aware of standards, script grammar, rendering and display issues and above all, the complexities of making the font work across all the different platforms. Font technology today is a far cry from the past where the only issue was to create a font designed to suit a specific purpose and the fontographer is today a programmer, a calligrapher, an artist, all rolled into one.

In the Indian scenario, the role the fontographer is called to play upon is even more crucial. Given the complexity of Indian scripts which are often non-linear, the variety of conjuncts and shapes and above all, the different demands of the industry: wordprocessing, video, DTP to name only a few, an urgent need makes itself felt to bring all specialists working in the area to meet on a common platform and discuss the various issues that beset them in the rapidly evolving scenario of font technology. It is to this thematic that the workshop addresses itself. Font technology within an Indian perspective needs to bridge the gap between classical writing styles and present-day technology to bring to the st 21 Century, the best in ancient writing styles. The key focus areas are the evolution of font technology through the past and its ties with manuscripts and texts; the latest trends and developments used in font development and also a look at what the future has in store. Since fonts play a crucial role in shaping our vision of the written and visual world, the socio cultural impact of fonts and their contextual thematic are a vital part of the workshop. A vital thrust area is also imparting the knowledge of font technology as a science and creating a “school”. The workshop is therefore targeted at not only those involved in the development of fonts, but also at researchers, academicians, software engineers, linguists, graphic designers, content developers, product marketing engineers and students in the relevant fields.