Other · Typeface Designer · Type Designer
My beginnings were not very different from any other aspiring typeface designer, back when I was in university: who doesn't get obsessed with all manners of found lettering?
Handmade lettering on signage is an invaluable typographic resource. It contains the possibility of circumventing the functional limitations of mainstream printing and typesetting technologies.
Every time something like this happens, the city loses a little more of its visual character.
Locally made signs offer up ways of combining different typographic styles and scripts in ways that would not be encouraged in formal design education
The Northern Block is rebuilding its typeface library through the Next Series, reengineering its core families like Loew, Lintel, and Nurom for global, multiscript use. The project involves international collaborators and advanced interpolation systems to improve readability and consistency across scripts and sizes. The initiative reflects the foundry’s commitment to cultural authenticity and technical precision in contemporary type design.
Creative Boom’s feature by Tom May explores Pooja Saxena’s forthcoming book 'India Street Lettering', which documents India’s disappearing hand-painted signage. Through years of photographing and researching vernacular typography, Saxena highlights how these handcrafted signs reveal unique typographic forms and cultural histories that are vanishing under digital printing. The article connects her archival work to her design practice, showing how it informs contemporary type and identity projects.
The article, written by Payal Khandelwal for It’s Nice That’s 'The View From' series, explores three projects that celebrate and reinterpret Indian street typography. It pays tribute to the late Hanif Kureshi’s pioneering work with The Handpainted Type and highlights contemporary efforts by Tanya George and Pooja Saxena to document and evolve vernacular lettering traditions. Through type walks, zines, and community engagement, these creatives are preserving and reimagining India’s rich typographic culture.