Issues with Devanagari Display Type - Sarang Kulkarni

Recorded during TypeCon2014: Capitolized in Washington, DC
An overview of existing display typefaces in Devanagari script, highlighting their inadequacies and suggesting probable solutions. While one gets to see variety of traditional, local styles, variations and letterforms with good visual quality in calligraphy, hand-painted or hand-drawn lettering, book covers and logotypes, the same may not be true in case of digital typefaces. One realizes that most of the existing digital display typefaces in Devanagari are inconsistent. They have imbalanced letter structures, limited or inadequate matras, and ill-designed conjuncts. They also seem outdated and are overused. Many of them copy features and styles from existing Latin typefaces.