Kurum - my first attempt at Kannada

Vasil Stanev
Vasil Stanev
in Type Design Critiques
Hello,
I have been taking Kannada classes for over a year and decided to give it a go with a font. I am currently learning the ropes so advice on how to proceed after the initial consonants will be apreciated. I feel that the coding will be of particular importance.
@James Puckett


Comments

  • James Puckett
    James Puckett
    I’m the wrong person to ask about Kannada. I’ve only done it once. Of course, the hard part about Kannada is that there aren’t many people who have done it more than once to ask for help.
  • Vasil Stanev
    Vasil Stanev
    edited December 2025
    James Puckett said:
    I’m the wrong person to ask about Kannada. I’ve only done it once. Of course, the hard part about Kannada is that there aren’t many people who have done it more than once to ask for help.
    I contacted an Indic type foundry and they quoted me something like $20 000 per Kannada master and about $3000 for consultation. They were really fast and professional. Makes you REALLY appreciate TypeDrawers. Time is money and consulting takes time. Maybe I should start charging $3000 for consulting for Cyrillic. ;)

  • Vasil Stanev
    Vasil Stanev
    edited September 4
    Not a specific question, just wanted to share how I'm doing and ask for advice before I dive headlong into the set.
    Gradually learning by doing, I have invested some time into reading about Indic scripts on the Miscroosft Typography page ( https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/typography/script-development/devanagari ). I fell in love with the elegant and (IMPO AFAIK) robust solutions that finally gave Indians OpenType typography. I think I understand the basics of the features that I should include in the font.
    However, on the practical level in FontLab 8, I hit snag after snag. In order to draw the Kannada glyphs, I downloaded a Google Font that supports the script and copy-pasted the cells into my font in order to get the codepoints so I can hammer away at the 500 glyphs or so that a Kannada font apparently has to have. There are glyphs like di (ದಿ) that aren't simple combinations of a base glyph and matra, so I expected to get the codepoints as cells, delete the Beziers and draw my design over them. I expected to have to return and redo the set multiple times, so I took the risk. Here is the set, full of strange empty cells: 
    AFAI understood, the highlightened cell is b.uni0C81, which Google tells me is  KANNADA SIGN CANDRABINDU (◌ಁ)

    Q: If you would like to give me advice on things I should clarify before proceeding, and/or getting me into a contact with a consultant, now is the time. :)

    I got interested in Indic scripts because, in the process of learning Kannada with a native, I came to understood the sheer number of potential customers living on the subcontinent. I see big financial opportunities there, and perhaps also there will be big issues with red tape, but I like the challenge.

    AI tells me that there is big demand for Indic fonts IF they also support Latin, so after I did the Latin (wip), I'm doing the above. Probably the design will have to become simpler in the process of "Kannadization". Probaly the first thing I would have to decide is wether to give the Indoc glyphs a slant as I gave to the Latin ones.

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