Modak

In most Devanagari fonts a vowel sign that follows a consonant sits beside it. In Modak it climbs over. The post-base matras overlap the consonants, the ukars underneath overlap too, and the only thing keeping the letters apart is a thin white line of counter between the fat shapes. That line was the hard part, Ek Type says: keeping it legible and the same width in every character, whatever the complexity of the letter.

It started as hand sketches of heavy letters whose curves ran into each other, and to make a working font from them the team drew extra matras to fit each consonant exactly, and overlapping ukars as well. Every conjunct was redrawn as 1 merged shape, where most fonts would build it from 2 glyphs. The designers think it is likely the chubbiest Devanagari ever made, and we have no reason to argue.

Sarang Kulkarni and Maithili Shingre drew the Devanagari and Noopur Datye the Latin, with support from Girish Dalvi. Pradnya Naik was among those who gave feedback, and friends at the Industrial Design Centre at IIT Bombay and the Sir J J Institute of Applied Art backed the project.

1 weight, 1,227 characters. Use it big and short. A sweets box, a Diwali poster, a word or 2 on a sign.