Tuesday 6 March 2012

A girl called India


Last summer, India Menninghaus spent a few months doing research and typography design at Viakerala. Heres an excerpt from her writings about working with the malayalam alphabet:

'Listening to Malayalam is exactly the same as trying to decipher the signs around the city: strings of dips and swirls that all blend together. The language is beautiful, and looks as friendly as it sounds with geometric curves & elaborate letter forms that loop back onto themselves. The spoken tongue seems to be peppered with an occasional English word, but never quite enough for me to understand the context of the conversation. After finally getting my hands on a copy of ‘Learn Malayalam in 30 Days’ I worked to twist my tongue into the unfamiliar sounds. It is not a concise language by any means, which I learned as I practiced the translation of 
“what’s up?”= enthe okke unde visheshangal 


During my time here, I worked on a typeface design inspired by the malayalam letterform, which turned out modern with a slight ornamental flavor of the local script.' - India Menninghaus