The first Indian-script typeface on the Monotype: a missing chapter in the history of mechanical typecasting
- Submitting institution
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The University of Reading
: B - Typography and Graphic Communication
- Unit of assessment
- 32 - Art and Design: History, Practice and Theory : B - Typography and Graphic Communication
- Output identifier
- 76953
- Type
- D - Journal article
- DOI
-
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- Title of journal
- Journal of the Printing Historical Society
- Article number
- -
- First page
- 37
- Volume
- 29
- Issue
- -
- ISSN
- 0079-5321
- Open access status
- Access exception
- Month of publication
- -
- Year of publication
- 2018
- URL
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- Supplementary information
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- Request cross-referral to
- -
- Output has been delayed by COVID-19
- No
- COVID-19 affected output statement
- -
- Forensic science
- No
- Criminology
- No
- Interdisciplinary
- No
- Number of additional authors
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0
- Research group(s)
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-
- Proposed double-weighted
- No
- Reserve for an output with double weighting
- Yes
- Additional information
- In the early decades of the twentieth century imperatives for faster composition and larger circulation of printed matter across the Indian subcontinent came to the fore with the rise of nationalism, the Indian independence movement, and the politics of language and script that emerged alongside. With limited recourse to technical know-how, colonial printing establishments responded by approaching manufacturers who could undertake the requisite technical experimentation for mechanical composition. The London-based Monotype Corporation is credited with the earliest development of a Devanagari-script typeface for its hot-metal machines. It has so far been thought that this development took place in the 1930s and that it was the first of its kind. This essay uncovers and examines evidence that situates the first Devanagari typeface on the Monotype machine as a distinct project, starting almost a decade earlier in 1921.
- Author contribution statement
- -
- Non-English
- No
- English abstract
- -
