Manjunatha R, aged 34, is a resident of T Narasipur and works as a lead designer in a firm located in the city. Recently, he has designed five new Kannada Unicode fonts in two different styles. With these additions, he has now created a total of six Kannada fonts this year.
One of the fonts is named ATS Bengaluru, which is specifically suitable for LED boards and designs. It aims to evoke the ambiance of Bengaluru, often referred to as the IT hub of the world, for its users and audience.
Manjunatha shared the story behind his first font, Bandipur, which he released in January. He explained that it was inspired by elephants, as they are commonly associated with Bandipur. The font’s name reflects its suitability for headlines, posters, prints, and similar purposes.
Regarding the development of the Bengaluru font, Manjunatha expressed his initial assumption that the issue with Kannada Unicode fonts appearing improperly on LED screens was a mistake in the LED technology itself. However, he discovered that there were no appropriate Kannada Unicode fonts available for LED displays. Thus, he took the initiative to create the Bengaluru font to address this need.
He further mentioned his plans to design additional fonts based on famous places, such as Mysuru, Anekal, and Chikkamagalur, as fonts have the ability to evoke emotions.
The Bengaluru font consists of five fonts: Dot, Smooth, Pixel, Squared, and LED. Reflecting on his childhood, Manjunatha shared his desire to develop a unique style of writing while he used to manually create banners and pamphlets. The enforced break during the Covid-19 pandemic provided him with the necessary opportunity to learn coding and develop these fonts. Prior to becoming a lead designer, he worked as a graphic and animation tutor.
Manjunatha detailed that he created these fonts using font coding through a Python script. They are compatible with all systems and can be downloaded for free from his website, Akshara Type Studio.
