Introduction
Surat is a complementary Gujarati typeface to Skolar. Gujarati is an Indian language spoken (and written) in the north-Indian state of Gujarat. It uses a complex syllabic writing system (i.e. the system requires character reordering and glyph processing to display properly, individual characters represent syllables). Vowels can be represented as diacritical marks or base characters; two or more syllables can form conjuncts by removing intervening vowel(s); certain characters can change to diacritical form; etc. Unicode and OpenType technologies are not sufficient by themselves to display the complex scripts properly, hence special processors are needed. Surat being Unicode compatible was developed for the Microsoft Uniscribe processor which manages correct glyph reordering of Gujarati in Microsoft Windows XP and later.
The typeface has been carefully designed to fit the conventional proportions of the script with an adaptation of the Skolar modulation principles. This should ensure that the Gujarati has the same flavour for its readers as the Latin counterpart. Relative proportions of the two scripts were set so they look equally important on the page and the overall text colours are as similar as possible. Surat has been given its own name to show that it has been treated as an equal and individual script next to the Latin.
It has to be said that there is a great lack of well-designed typefaces for Indian scripts as the demands of development, typesetting and linguistic insight are vast. There is not more than ten proper Gujarati text typefaces.
Surat was concieved during MA Typeface Design studies at the University of Reading in 2006–7. It is not yet released, however, if you are interested in customization or other use, feel free to contact me at brezina@davi.cz.
Awards & Recognitions
Skolar & Surat won at the European Design Awards in 2008. The typefaces were presented in various magazines (Typo, 2+3D, idpure) and exihibited at 23rd International biennale of graphic design in Brno.
