Session 29 summary
Ishan has turned a body language (language inscribed on body) into a typeface by making a digital typeface of the tribal tattoos of Chhattisgarh. The Typecraft Initiative started in 2012. It originated with the idea that how designers live in the urban areas and work on projects not involving rural India and the design in India didn’t seem Indian. Most design studios didn’t do something unique like other countries especially in the field of Graphic Design, this gave them the idea of incorporating Indian designs in Graphic Design. They started slowly with the mehendi design (henna tattoos) and it gradually broadened to other designs also. Starting typecraft as a digital form they didn’t know how successful it would be. The whole experience has been exciting to the community and innovative for the designers, as the transformation of a craft into a typeface is a new thing. The next thing they had come up with was; how to promote it abroad? So they did exhibitions in Tokyo. It was important to exhibit them as it helps in archiving them which is important to prevent them from disappearing, which is lacking in India currently.
What they are trying to create is a range of application with the fonts of the craft. Letterings are customized or custom made for something but the font is something than can be used by anyone, it is much more vigorous and time consuming. The fonts are for headings as it is complex with many details. Since it is taken from craft, whenever they start working on them, they all start from the process of how it is made and how it is used in that community. There are many thoughts related to design and craft, they usually have dichotomy between them. The designers have to crash this dichotomy to bring design and craft together.
The craft of Godna
In the practice of Godna craft, women apply tattoos to the women of the tribe or to the women of other tribes. But over time there has been a decline in the traditional use of the craft as not much traditional tattooing is done in the young generation. The alternative they came up with was painting the textiles. This is how they survive. In the workshop of 3 weeks the idea was to learn as well, not to just teach and maintain a balance and respect towards the craft. In the first part of the workshop they started by discovering how many tattoos are made, then where are they applied. Next how it is made with the soot from kerosene lamps and with the help of needles a design is inscribed, then cow dung and turmeric is used to sanitize it. There is a Pooja done to ward off evil. There are special songs sung during the entire process and the women are taken away from men when tattooing. In the second part, they understand the various motives. Tattoos are a language same as pictures or pictographs. The communities have an inherent knowledge of this language and the certain places the tattoos are put.
Initially Ishan’s team didn’t give any instruction to the women who participated in the workshop. They asked the people to draw by themselves, to use their own patterns and designs without any of their inputs. The outcome of this activity had a rawness in it. But when it comes to fonts the height, line thickness should be consistent, there should not be extensive variations. If there has to be variation, it can be in the patterns. How it should be maintained and with the size they are comfortable with, given these conditions, the women came up with 3 sets of letters. When making it into a typeface, they decided the outcome to be a display typeface and not text typeface. When making a craft into a typeface, it becomes devoid of the ritualistic meaning it earlier had and the tattoo language is merged with the English language. When the typefaces were created they went back to show it to the women and their families. They were very happy seeing their work digitalized but as they didn’t know English they were not aware of the influence of their work as font is something a designer can use to create anything from it.
In the process of making typeface, a simple “A” has fewer nodes than the letter created with godna designs. So the idea to share design among the letters for ease was brought up but it was given up as then all the letters would lose their uniqueness. It was also discussed to reduce the nodes but then the letters would be simplified. In the end they came up with three variations and also ding bats (original tattoos).
About the Speaker
Ishan Khosla
Prof. Ishan Khosla
UPES Dehradoon
Ishan Khosla is a visual artist, designer, educator and Associate Professor in the School of Design, UPES, Dehradun. The Typecraft Initiative is a self-initiated project by Ishan Khosla that aims to create a series of digital fonts in the Latin and Indic scripts from Indian crafts and tribal arts. So far, Typecraft has worked with Godna tattoos from Chhattisgarh, Chittara floor and wall art from Karnataka, Mithila art from Bihar and numerous embroideries (Pakko, DhebariaRabari and Soof) from Kutch in the western state of Gujarat.
