Typedesign and Indonesia

Dusan Jelesijevic
Dusan Jelesijevic Posts: 66
edited July 2019 in Type Business
Sincerely I hope that this question wouldn't offend anyone, especially the Serbia I'm coming from isn't famous for anything similar, but I noticed a big boom of Indonesian releases on MyFonts.  There are more then 50 foundries from Indonesia, releasing a tons of script families almost every day.

Since I'm not following so often news from Asian markets, I was wondering what made Indonesia (at least to me) all of sudden country who's having this number of type designers? 

Are there maybe any newly formed Universities, conferences, workshops etc that brought this popularity for type design?

Thanks.
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Comments

  • AzizMostafa AzizAli
    AzizMostafa AzizAli Posts: 103
    edited July 2019
    Vasil Stanev said:
    If Islam or internal conflicts like the East Timor one does not mess the country up, as is the rule throughout most of history, it will be a considerable powerhouse. (I have had to hand trace anime characters with qurans and traditional Muslim attire... it's somewhere on my hard drive).
    As happened to Turkey as well?!
    https://typedrawers.com/discussion/comment/38193

    Absolutely true! The Indonesian/Malaysian/Turkish scripts have been transformed into Latin after being written for centuries in Arabic (Quranic) script that is still being used and called Arab Jawi or Pegon as shown in the attached picture

    and elaborated here http://nonosoft.jifisa.net/

    Still exchanging Crosswords? https://t.me/FlowerCrosswords/10
    Why not exchange Flowers? https://t.me/FonJawi/23


    Happy exploring through Telegram https://telegram.org with Flowers
  • Hrant Հրանդ Փափազեան Papazian
    Hrant Հրանդ Փափազեան Papazian Posts: 2,044
    AzizMostafa said:
    The Indonesian/Malaysian/Turkish scripts have been transformed into Latin after being written for centuries in Arabic
    A damn shame in both cases.
  • AzizMostafa AzizAli
    AzizMostafa AzizAli Posts: 103
    Hrant H. Papazian said:
    A damn shame in both cases.
    @ In both cases or many more Arabic/Quranic-based scripts like Sindhi, Saraiki, Kazakh, Uyghur, Punjabi, Khowar (Chitrali), , Balochi, Brahui, Kashmiri (Koshur), Kirghiz, Ozbek, Turkmen, Gawri (Kalami) too?!
  • Hrant Հրանդ Փափազեան Papazian
    Hrant Հրանդ Փափազեան Papazian Posts: 2,044
    It could make sense in some cases. I'm just not aware of any.
  • AzizMostafa AzizAli
    AzizMostafa AzizAli Posts: 103
    edited July 2019
    Vasil Stanev said:
    Ain't gonna debate you if most Islamic states throughout history are failed or not, everybody can check the facts for themselves.
    Hope you scrutinize what happened throughout history and what is happening today not bypassing how the crooks did play and still playing their role in:
    1. fighting Prophet Mohammed (peace be upon Him, His Household & His sincere followers)?
    2. misguiding people by misinterpreting some verses of the Glorious Quran?
    3. changing Arabic/Quranic-based scripts into Latin?, and
    4. creating & supporting terrorism in Syria, Yemen, Lebanon, Palestine and elsewhere?
    Vasil Stanev said:
    Perhaps there are Indonesean designers on the board?
    @ Well, here is two Indonesian Type Designers:
    1. https://typedrawers.com/profile/2675/Gumpita Rahayu
    2. https://typedrawers.com/profile/1600/Aditya Bayu
    And more here:
    http://luc.devroye.org/indonesia.html
    Hope to hear from one of them soon here as well as there:
    https://typedrawers.com/discussion/3089/arabic-design-contest#late

  • Vasil Stanev
    Vasil Stanev Posts: 775
    I have moved our little chat on PM to keep the thread on-topic.
  • AzizMostafa AzizAli
    AzizMostafa AzizAli Posts: 103
    edited July 2019
    Vasil Stanev said:
    I have moved our little chat on PM to keep the thread on-topic.
    Thank you for not going off-topic.
  • John Savard
    John Savard Posts: 1,126
    edited July 2019
    Ain't gonna debate you if most Islamic states throughout history are failed or not, everybody can check the facts for themselves.Suffice is to say that Turkey is our southern neighbour and things there are far from rosy,

    Aside from not wanting to go off-topic... even if I might agree with taking a jaundiced view of much of the Islamic world, I don't see any connection between that and the merits of the Arabic script versus the Latin script.
    The Latin script, being made up of disconnected letters without positional changes in form, is much simpler to deal with, as well as being highly legible. Are these advantages worth giving up cultural diversity?
    There are elements of culture that are subject to legitimate criticism, but there is also the "folkloric" aspect of culture; different peoples speak different languages, eat different foods, wear different clothes, and so on, all of which is so nonthreatening that politicians of all stripes can gush over it even if they would recoil in horror, legitimately or not, from any real diversity in things like basic philosophy of life or ethical views.
    Of course, there is a larger political context, in which one might suspect the motives of the Turkish government if it seeks to make communication with the Arab world easier, and communication with Europe more difficult. That a fait accompli would have to be reversed, bothering the Turks to learn to read and write all over again (if that is indeed the case, it may not be) is another matter.
    But I still would class the script used for a language as belonging to the folkloric portion of cultural diversity, the innocent uniqueness every national group has, and therefore not something to be tampered with without a very good reason, as doing so is hurtful to the people of that group.
  • AzizMostafa AzizAli
    AzizMostafa AzizAli Posts: 103
    edited July 2019
    John Savard said:

    The Latin script, being made up of disconnected letters without positional changes in form, is much simpler to deal with, as well as being highly legible. Are these advantages worth giving up cultural diversity?
    Well! Tell me which is not only simpler but also more encouraging?

    Adding tails to disconnected letters to make them cursive or changing tails of Cursive letters, without changing their letter-heads, to make them more attractive?

    Comparing the two scripts:
    Latin letters = 34 stand-alone shapes = 26 (A-Z) + 8 (a+b+d+e+g+h+q+r) not taking the differences in the other 18.
    Quranic/Arabic-based letters - Dots = only (19) sweet and dancing shapes. https://www.sleeplessinkl.com/2010/08/25/tearing-my-hair-out-over-jawi

    That's right: Unlike Latin, Quranic/Arabic-based scripts love to go hand in hand and shoulder to shoulder as elaborated in the attached files.

    So, were those advantages worth changing cultural diversity?
    2. Why were the Quranic/Arabic-based scripts replaced with Latin?
    3. How do the crooks justify changing cultural diversity?

    Hope my posts are more illuminating than confusing https://t.me/R2LChangers
  • John Savard
    John Savard Posts: 1,126
    edited July 2019
    AzizMostafa said:
    So, were those advantages worth changing cultural diversity?
    I am firmly opposed to the persecution and mistreatment of minorities by national governments, and this includes Muslim minorities.
  • AzizMostafa AzizAli
    AzizMostafa AzizAli Posts: 103
    edited July 2019
    John Savard said:
    I am firmly opposed to the persecution and mistreatment of minorities by national governments, and this includes Muslim minorities.
    Are Muslims in Indonesia/Malaysia and Brunei minorities or majorities?!
  • John Savard
    John Savard Posts: 1,126
    AzizMostafa said:
    John Savard said:
    I am firmly opposed to the persecution and mistreatment of minorities by national governments, and this includes Muslim minorities.
    Are Muslims in Indonesia/Malaysia and Brunei minorities or majorities?!
    The majority, but I was referring to persecution of Muslims in Thailand, to which the article you linked to referred. Unless I quoted a link other than the one I followed.
  • AzizMostafa AzizAli
    AzizMostafa AzizAli Posts: 103
    edited July 2019
    Dyana Weissman said:
    A reminder to keep things on-topic, this is a forum for the discussion of type and lettering, not the criticism of religion. 
    Many Thanks with Flowers though this reminder was supposed to be published after the very first reply by @Vasil Stanev . Or that how democracy works?!
  • AzizMostafa AzizAli
    AzizMostafa AzizAli Posts: 103
    edited January 2020
    Well-done & Congratulations Indonesian Arabic Typeface Designers!
    1. Syamsi Namela [Nur Syamsi]  > http://luc.devroye.org/fonts-102116.html
    2. Panca Ahmadi > http://luc.devroye.org/fonts-102412.html
    All the Best for All with Flowers

  • Ariq Syauqi
    Ariq Syauqi Posts: 13
    Indonesian here. Yes, you're right. Typeface design is now a thing in Indonesia.
    I think here's my perspective:

    1. Some years ago, probably circa 2010-2018, lettering was booming in Indonesia, thanks to Instagram and other similar platforms. More people tried hand lettering, calligraphy, etc.

    2. The trend led them to learn about lettering/calligraphy etc even more. I could confirm, the atmosphere there was very supportive! They began to build a community, workshop, etc. And trust me, once again, it was a very supportive atmosphere to learn.
    You can check account like @Kaligrafina, @Belmenid, @Jktyp on Instagram, they encourage people to draw letters nicely, had regular meeting, and often did a workshop or exhibition about letters. And you know what, every big cities in Indonesia had similar community. This led the knowledges spread easily.

    3. Some people who are confident enough about their knowledge about "what makes good letters good", started to try one step ahead: creating fonts. That's why a huge amount of typefaces come from Indonesia are script or hand-lettered. Because their basic were calligraphy/hand lettering.

    I think that describes the trend enough. Maybe there's a few people that really learn about typeface design somewhere, but that's not the trend.
  • Abdurrahman Hanif
    Abdurrahman Hanif Posts: 8
    Muhammad Ariq Syauqi said:
    Indonesian here. Yes, you're right. Typeface design is now a thing in Indonesia.
    I think here's my perspective:

    1. Some years ago, probably circa 2010-2018, lettering was booming in Indonesia, thanks to Instagram and other similar platforms. More people tried hand lettering, calligraphy, etc.

    2. The trend led them to learn about lettering/calligraphy etc even more. I could confirm, the atmosphere there was very supportive! They began to build a community, workshop, etc. And trust me, once again, it was a very supportive atmosphere to learn.
    You can check account like @Kaligrafina, @Belmenid, @Jktyp on Instagram, they encourage people to draw letters nicely, had regular meeting, and often did a workshop or exhibition about letters. And you know what, every big cities in Indonesia had similar community. This led the knowledges spread easily.

    3. Some people who are confident enough about their knowledge about "what makes good letters good", started to try one step ahead: creating fonts. That's why a huge amount of typefaces come from Indonesia are script or hand-lettered. Because their basic were calligraphy/hand lettering.

    I think that describes the trend enough. Maybe there's a few people that really learn about typeface design somewhere, but that's not the trend.
    Yes i am Indonesian and this is true.
  • Paul Hanslow
    Paul Hanslow Posts: 173
    Hi @abdrhnf.
    Please make note of the following rule for all members the TypeDrawers community: 

    1. Use your real name. All members must use their real-life first and last names as a username. This policy encourages thoughtful, mature discourse where all participants are accountable members of a professional community.

    Thanks.
  • Abdurrahman Hanif
    Abdurrahman Hanif Posts: 8
    Paul Hanslow said:
    Hi @abdrhnf.
    Please make note of the following rule for all members the TypeDrawers community: 

    1. Use your real name. All members must use their real-life first and last names as a username. This policy encourages thoughtful, mature discourse where all participants are accountable members of a professional community.

    Thanks.
    yes, sorry i don't realize i didn't use my real name. i've change it
  • AzizMostafa AzizAli
    AzizMostafa AzizAli Posts: 103
    edited March 2020
    Big Thumbs up for South East Asian Arabic/Jawi Calligraphy!
    https://t.me/FlowerCrosswords/57 = https://t.me/FonJawi/537
    Practice makes perfect? Why not Fly High Unique & Dynamic Fonts? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=itZ66gUVVCI
    All the Best to All with Flowers


  • AzizMostafa AzizAli
    AzizMostafa AzizAli Posts: 103
    edited April 2020
    Just sharing "Talking Arabic/Jawi Typography" https://t.me/t.me/FonJawi/540
    By Shahzihan from Malaysia



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