Hello,
I'm working on a thesis on side-by-side communication between Latin and non-Latin fonts, and I'm looking for examples in which different languages and writing styles interact with each other in order to reach a broad audience in creative ways.
I'll leave two links as an example of the material I'm collecting:
https://wemakeloveblog.wordpress.com/2012/10/22/the-hinglish-font-by-shirin-johari/http://www.alexandredelvert.com/institut-du-monde-arabeAnything from print to web design, niche projects or big and famous ones, I'll take all of your suggestions.
Thank you so much!
Comments
The examples that immediately come to mind are: Aravrit, Balkan, Hangulatin and this by Ine Beerten:
There are a few more which I'll try to remember.
BTW you might appreciate this Flickr group:
https://www.flickr.com/groups/cross-script-letterforms/
I'll surely dig into this material.
You definitely made me expand my curiosity on fonts that mimic other writing styles even without being intelligible by different targets, so I'm gonna see if I can include that in my work as well, but I'm definitely super interested in things like Aravrit and Balkan!
Strife between the dominant Sinhalese and the Tamil minority in Sri Lanka has made the news in past years. I doubt that a common alphabet would actually do much to address the issues underlying the conflict.
No doubt, by analogy, someone has proposed a Hebrew-Arabic hybrid script. Of course, they could also go back to the Phoenician script as well. And the Arabic language can, of course, be written with Latin characters themselves, as is done on Malta.
Of course, the Maltese use the Latin script because they were converted to Roman Catholicism, just as Poles and Croatians use the Latin script, while Serbs and Bulgarians and Russians, who were historically Orthodox, use Cyrillic. Similarly, the Arabic script is used for unrelated languages such as Urdu and Farsi - and, in the past, Turkish - because the Islamic religion spread to those places.
Given, therefore, that script systems are often heavily identified not just with national culture, but with the religious faith dominant among people of a given nationality, they're not something that can be easily changed.
In my research, I'm studying the interaction of different systems that require the juxtaposition of different scripts for intelligibility sake or to communicate a specific message.
Take my example of the communication of the Institut du monde arabe in Paris, well there the intertwining of the two languages is very symbolic.
As for conflictual instances of a unified Arabic-Hebrew script, a font like Aravrit still has a very strong communicational value in the context of a campaign for peace for instace.
I still think you raise a good point in reminding us that the evolution of the scripts we're using is grounded in history and we should remember and respect that. I just think our fascination for tradition shouldn't be an obstacle in the way of approaching typography from a new point of view.
Why not make row-by-row comparison?
And more pictures and info on Behance: Here, here and here.
I find your project very fascinating! The Perso-Arabic script is the only one I sooorta know how to read besides Latin, and I see what you did there!
I still have to figure out the structure of my thesis, but I might be able to include your project, I can see that working very well in a communication that will include the two scripts.
Ah, here: http://www.typophile.com/node/56681
I don't quite know if they fit much with my work, cause if I'm not wrong they mainly have a decorative purpose, so I don't quite know how to link them with inclusivity and simultaneous understandability by different audiences, but you've made my evening, they are a very interesting writing form, so thank you nonetheless!