Re: [Indic-computing-users] Indian language font contest (suggestion from Delhi)

[Dr. U.B. P. <pav...@vi...>]

I have some reservations here. The process of making a font 
is the job of professionals. I don't think some students 
can do a good job.

As of now, since Akruti has released a lot of fonts in 
public domain, there is no immediate need of making 
Truetype fonts. No doubt TTF are needed, but the current 
priority should be converting the public domain TTF to OTF. 

To do that the steps are -

1. Identify the extra glyhs needed for each language
2. Make these glyphs in TTF. There is no need to draw the 
glyphs on paper, scan them, etc. Just use the existing 
glyphs in the same TTF, copy, paste, combine, etc.
3. Take this font to VOLT and add Opentype tables
4. If possible, do the hinting (tough job)

Probably these steps, except the hinting can be entrusted 
to students with proper guidance/supervison by expert(s).

Rgds,
Pavanaja


> ---------- Forwarded message ----------
> 
> indian language font contest
> 
> objective: an inter-school computer events and competitions, a
> font-design contest must be organized. the participants must design
> indian language fonts, from any of the 16 officially recognized
> languages of india.
> 
> vision: indian languages hardly have any choices in indian script
> fonts. most are poorly or even incorrectly encoded. thus a whole layer
> of language and type-encoding, never really developed in india. for
> example: indian language search engines, proper support in
> industry-standard databases, indian language ocr, handwriting
> recognition, language translation, text to speech, speech to text,
> universal spell checkers and grammar checkers, etc etc etc.
> 
> logistix:
> 
> 1) the correct standard is to encode indian languages using the
> unicode standard. see unicode.org for further info. this is the
> universal encoding system for all languages of the world, past,
> present, future.
> 
> 2) the font format must be opentype font. see opentype.org for more
> info. opentype is a single file font. whew! and this single file works
> across mac, win, linux, unix, and even savvy handheld and other
> devices. (sort of the jpg of font formats). the opentype format is
> also more compact and compressed.
> 
> 3) to correctly type on 'qwerty' keyboards, the indian language script
> has been standardized on its layout on the qwerty keyboard. this is
> called INSCRIPT. 
> 
> 4) an exhaustive amount of reference and research material on type,
> type encoding, type design, type file formats, unicode, indian
> language encoding, etc. has bee compiled and made available to the
> schools on a cd. you are free to copy and further distribute this cd,
> for your own reference and research. this reference includes the
> unicode tables for indian languages, the INSCRIPT layout of the
> keyboard for indian languages, and tonnes of other essential stuff.
> 
> 5) participating school students have to design a hindi language font,
> based on the devanagri script of hindi.
> 
> 6) the font should be complete, must have all the characters required
> for the full and complete use of the font. all characters are defined
> in the unicode table, provided on the cd.
> 
> 7) the font should be compiled as an opentype font.
> 
> 8) to design the font, a free of cost, and freedom-based software,
> such as pfaedit, may be used. this application runs natively on linux.
> it also runs under windows using another application called 'cygwin.' 
> the online help and documentation of pfaedit is excellent and gets any
> beginner started within a few hours of reading thru it.
> 
> 9) participants may also use other alternative software such as
> freehand fontographer, fontlab3 or fontlab4, or even other software,
> mentioned on the reference cd.
> 
> 10) a free utility, called VOLT, available from microsoft's website,
> also allows designers to convert fonts natively created as truetype
> fonts (ttf) in fontographer or other apps, to be converted into
> opentype fonts.
> 
> 11) the font wil be the copyright and credited to the font designer.
> the designer may name the font anything they wish, as long as it
> conforms to filesystem requirements and naming conventions.
> 
> 12) the font and even the source file, must be published under the gpl
> license. (www.gpl.org) for more info. in effect, it must be free and
> guarantee certain freedom to its users. and others may also further
> modfiy and refine it.
> 
> contest rules:
> 
> 1) the font design contest will be launched at modern school vasant
> vihar's inter-school computer event, called MODEM, for 2002.
> 
> 2) the particiapting schools may start designing the font a few weeks
> before the contest, and submit the final file at the contest.
> 
> 3) the design must be original, and not another existing design ripped
> off or re-encoded.
> 
> 4) for the purposes of the contest, the participants must bring their
> source material, such as hand-drawn characters which they may have
> scanned and used as templates, as well as test printouts, sample
> display prints, notes, design notes, etc. the display output as
> samples must be on different media: such as desktop bubblejet
> printers, and especially on postscript laser printers, at 600 dpi, and
> higher.
> 
> 5) full freedom is granted in choosing the design and style: it could
> be for a book's body text, or for decorative displays, or for
> signboards, or whatever style or mood the designers think best.
> 
> 6) the contest will be evalauted by an independent jury on the
> following criterion:
> 
>  a) conforming to unicode.
>  b) legibility of design at smallest to largest sizes.
>  c) smoothness of the fonts shapes. it must not appear coarse or rough
>  at any 
> size.
>  d) aspects such as hinting, though optional, will get extra points.
>  hinting 
> a font allows it to be tweaked slightly depending on the size and
> output required. this makes a font even more clear and legible. more
> info on the reference cd.
> 
> 7) a standard, sample of text will be used at the contest, to test the
> font, to ensure it has all the characters and designs.
> 
> :-)
> linuxlingam
> 
> 
> 
> 
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-----------------------------------------------------
Dr. U.B. Pavanaja
Editor, Vishva Kannada
World's first Internet magazine in Kannada
http://www.vishvakannada.com/

Note: I don't worry about pselling mixtakes