Baloo is a big deal. As far as I know, it’s the world’s first display typeface family to render the ten* most-used Indic writing systems in one cohesive style. These are scripts used by 1.3 billion people.
How difficult is this task? Each of the world’s scripts has its own visual language, and the multiscript type designer must act as an interpreter to find the common ground between them. In this case: the sharp, jagged forms of Bengali and the flowing loops of Malayalam; the cadence of repetitious Tamil and the variable texture and density of the lively Telugu; the hypnotic undulation of Odia’s top curves and Gurmukhi’s squarish, solid forms; the many curls, teardrops, and terminals of Kannada and the fluid simplicity of Gujarati; the dense, top-heavy Devanagari and the streamlined, simple Latin.
It’s a delicate balancing act, and I believe that Ek Type nailed it. Baloo’s soft, thick stroke was applied with great care, subtly quieting each script’s complicated elements, and smoothing over their differences. The designers have harmonized the stems, curves, angles, loops, ticks, dots, knots, and tails of roughly 3,500 different glyphs. The scripts look like they’ve all been wrapped in the same blanket. It’s just sublime. And while I feel that the scripts’ relative sizes may not be perfect, I commend the Ek Type design team for prioritizing the clarity of each letterform, no matter how complex. If Baloo represents the very beginning of Indic multiscript display families, I can’t imagine the marvels that are yet to come.
* Baloo Bhaijan, the Arabic script variant, was added in 2017, after this review was written.
Your Baloo Tamma (for Kannada language script) is excellent. The letter for “DH” (the last item in second row in the illustration set here) is smaller in size and should be made consistent.
Congratulations on a well-designed, esthetically pleasing set.
Dear Prof Sridhar,
We are happy that you liked Baloo. The character ‘DH’ was set in a smaller point size in this specimen by mistake. It is consistent with the other letters in the typeface.
Thank you.
Is it possible to type with these fonts in the latest versions of InDesign?
Hello T K Wilson,
Yes, you can use Baloo fonts in latest versions of InDesign, Illustrator, Photoshop and many other softwares which supports unicode.
Regards
Dear Saranga,
I appreciate the wonderful initiative of ‘Baloo’ to create one Font family for all Indian scripts. It must be difficult but at the end It is succeeded.
I must point out to do some corrections in a couple of letters of Odia as i have been associated with this script. The letter ‘Chha’, ‘Ba’ and ‘Ya’ need to be corrected as they loose its basic characteristic and anatomy.
It is not your team’s fault but you must have followed wrong resources. It is seen that many recent fonts are developed in similar wrong line.
However, It has been discussed among the people who are leading Odia language and Odia script experts during one of my talks on Odia Typography. I had shown there your ‘Baloo Bhaina’, and everyone pointed out those letters as faulty and not acceptable.
Regards,
Paresh