Tiro Kannada

Tiro Kannada grew out of type commissioned by Harvard University Press for its Murty Classical Library of India, where the Kannada had to echo how classical texts were once printed and still be clear in modern print and on screen.

The design borrows from 3 places at once. The open, crisp counters come from the 19th century types of the Basel Mission Press. Ligatures are styled after 1930s types from the Gujarat Type Foundry, and the lively stroke angles were taken from unattributed types in a 20th century Kannada textbook. Subscript letters are drawn generously large so they stay legible.

Google Fonts approached Tiro in 2019 about an open release. For it the font gained more characters and, new, an italic, which Kaja Słojewska adapted.

Regular and Italic, then, with small caps, discretionary ligatures and 2 stylistic sets, plus Latin diacritics for transcribing Indian languages. We would put it to work in the setting it came from, scholarly editions and literary books.