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Back to Tom Foley: How to pair typefaces and why the best brand fonts go unnoticed, with Tom Foley.

How Did Nokia Get Tamil and Malayalam Typefaces?

Tom Foley designed Tamil and Malayalam typefaces for Nokia while he was at Dalton Maag, and he says cultural research is what made that possible.

Nokia's project started in 2010 and ran for a few years. He had been thrown in at the deep end on complex writing systems. Skills from his master's, studying the cultural origins of shapes, served him well. He found the research enjoyable and says he translated a lot of it quite instinctively into pretty good typefaces. Native-speaking designers and linguists who knew the scripts helped him learn quickly.

He says the cultural and historical side of type design is crucial for work at a global scale, in other script systems, or in niche areas. He thinks that habit goes for all design. Understanding why a style looks a certain way, and where it emerged, from subcultures or music scenes, makes a better designer.

Grokipedia·Tom Foley·Malayalam

Transcript

Tom Foley: How to pair typefaces and why the best brand fonts go unnoticed ·

Design Better

More from this episode

  1. How Did Tom Foley First Fall for Typography?Tom Foley first fell for letters pretty young, long before he knew the word typography.
  2. What Is Irish Type?Irish type is a letter style invented in Queen Elizabeth's reign, during the Reformation, to look the way English printers thought Irish readers would want…
  3. Is the Nib Typeface for Sale?Tom Foley says the Nib typeface is not commercially available.
  4. How Do You Design a New Typeface?Tom Foley designs a new typeface by absorbing the brief until it sinks in, then sitting down to draw.
  5. How Do You Pair Typefaces?Tom Foley says you pair typefaces by matching structure first: where the letters come from, their vertical proportions, and their weight.
  6. Why Did Tom Foley Leave Monotype?Tom Foley left Monotype, where he was executive creative director, to make type again at Drama. He describes an eight-year itch.
  7. What Book Should Type Designers Start With?Tom Foley tells type designers to start with books, and the one he always recommends to students is Designing Type by Karen Cheng.
  8. Which Typefaces Does Tom Foley Recommend?Tom Foley recommends three typefaces more people should use: Lexicon, Macklin, and Blenny.

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