| Ray Typography |
Ray's interest in typography did not actually start with metallic letters used for printing – but from calligraphy done with a thick brush.
When he was a student of Art in Tagore's University at Santiniketan, one of Ray's painting teachers – Benode Behari Mukherjee – used to write Bengali words in calligraphy using a thick brush. A clichéd word – ‘death', for instance -- which appears mundane when printed in metallic types, Ray found, becoming full of lively expressions exuding an array of its poetic and existential senses. It was indeed an artistic revelation. |
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| Ray Bizzare |
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Then Ray was exposed, in the cave-paintings of Ajanta in Western India, to the expressive power of thick and long calligraphic lines drawn with thick brushes. This familiarity also enhanced Ray's conviction in the dominance of calligraphy in visual arts.
The young Ray had by then discovered that he had a natural flair for calligraphy as his brush strokes were unusually swift and strong moving precisely in the directions set by him.
He started applying this capacity not on the canvas, but in a field which could hardly be called a genre of art in the mid-1940s. The field was advertising. |
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| Young Ray's brush strokes were swift and strong |
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| Ray calligraphy |
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The flamboyance of Ray's calligraphic typography first attracted people's attention in 1943, the year he started designing the covers of Bengali books for ‘Signet Press', a new publication house. The designing of covers gave Ray twin chances to explore calligraphic typography. Firstly, for the cover itself and secondly, for the very small spaces he got in the yellowish pages of the well-liked periodicals printed in newsprint, to advertise the new books. |
| The young Ray, in his mid 20s, often had to design experimental books of modern poems. Yet for the covers he could not find any metallic type suitable enough to express the elegiac sense of the poems. |
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| An innovative typograph |
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Therefore, calligraphic typography was called for. Ray created new Bengali fonts having refreshingly innovative yet perfectly legible form. (One of the numerous instances of the unbroken flow of Ray's typographical innovations is the lettering of ‘Rupashi Bangla ', literally meaning ‘The Beautiful Bengal', by the ground-breaking Bengali poet Jibanananda Das.)
Then came the question of advertising the new books in popular periodicals ( like ‘Desh' , for instance ). The space Ray got for the ads was hardly more than 5cm. x 7cm. How to attract people's attention in such a small space? The flamboyance of his calligraphy came to rescue the young Ray. He wrote main message in black and bold calligraphic scripts. Other information, hand-written also by him in small and slender types, surrounded the main calligraphic message – rather like twinkling tiny diamonds surrounding the great emerald crowning a royal ring. At once this style of publicity created a new genre in late 40s. |
Actually what Ray only retained from his about 10-year-stint in advertising are types done in calligraphy. To quote his own words : “… I had developed a deep interest in calligraphy. In fact I found no interest in the other aspects of advertising – always felt it to be a hollow affair.” (1970 ; quoted from Ray's long interview in the magazine, "Kolkata" ) This attitude did not change at all even in 1985. Ray admitted that one of the major reasons for his leaving advertising was, in his opinion, the field is “full of foolish people!” (BBC-Omnibus, a documentary on Ray by Adam Low.)
But the real variety in Ray's typography began appear in from 1961 after the renewal of ‘Sandesh' , the children's magazine. Ray was the Editor as well as the Designer/Illustrator of the monthly.
A fresh and most creative phase in his life as the designer of types began from the first issue itself, in May, 1961. |
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| An architectural design by Ray |
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Ray then became the font designer in the truest sense of the term. This point is so critically important that it should be explained here a little bit. For Ray, the difference between designing fonts and designing architecture became very little. |
| (He himself designed the courts and palaces for his films.) Firstly, architectural designs should have the basic quality of being replicable.Once the design of one column is finalized, erecting all others becomes easy. Above all, Ray had to design arches, stairs, window and doors etc. keeping harmony with |
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Architectural harmony in typography :
Ray Roman
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the basic design of the columns. ( Therefore, in typography, a rather unknown look of a newly designed ‘O' should be harmonized with the ‘T' of the same font : a difficult task, as the formations of these two letters are absolutely different. )
The quality of being replicable can't ever be achieved only by boisterous brushwork. Because an artist, like one's signature on a cheque, cannot ever truly imitate the calligraphy of other artists. Nevertheless, the design of fonts should be replicable. Ray started doing exactly this on the pages of his magazine, ‘Sandesh' . |
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So, from 1961, Ray's design of fonts became divided into two different streams: one is Architectural, i.e., replicable, while the other is Calligraphic, i.e., non-replicable.
The applications of the two streams were like this. (1) Ray always designed Architectural fonts for the titles or logos that would be repeated in all the issues of the monthly all over the year. (2) He quite often designed Calligraphic letterings for the frontispieces that would be printed only once.
New architectural fonts were created every year for the magazine's logo. Since the title-fonts were replicable, whenever necessities came, the title could also be painted on billboards and festoons, by other painters as well. |
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| First logo of Sandesh, 1961 |
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| A designer of fonts - it was a new incarnation of Ray. And, he was truly marvelous as a designer of Architectural fonts. When he worked for a British Advertising Company both in Calcutta and in London, Ray didn't really felt the urge to design Architectural Fonts – neither in Bengali nor in English. Because, the products – from tea to tyres – for which he had to design logos could not naturally generate in Ray the love and reverence necessary for creating new Architectural fonts. But ‘Sandesh', his own grandfather's magazine, could easily do that. He became the first designer in India who designed Architectural fonts in any of the Indian languages – about 30 in all. |
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Now let's have a closer look at Ray's Architectural fonts. Here are three examples of his logos showing the name of the magazine : ‘Sandesh' . You may not be able to read it, may not be able to identify the individual letters either, but just try to imagine a word ( ‘Sandesh' )which is written in all the three designs looking so dissimilar. The capacity to create such diversity in look and formation for the same words is the hallmark Satyajit Ray, the font-designer.
Another quality of Ray Fonts is that they one noticeable. Letter does not lose any of its beauty or balance, even if you imagine the letter as big as a 3-storied building ; or even if the same letter is printed on the corner of a postage stamp. Keeping the possibility of letting the same letters become as big as an elephant or as small as an ant is the hallmark of Ray's Architectural designs of typography.
Ray consciously retained the architectural quality even for the frontispieces of the novels serialized all over the year – i.e., for 12 successive issues. We can see an example here : it was the logo designed in 1965 for Ray's first mystery-novel, ‘The Royal Ring', featuring Feluda. The novel was serialized in 12 installments; therefore, the same logo was also printed for 12 times. Here, the architectural quality enhanced the design's strength which made it possible for the design to be used every month. This title wouldn't have been valid had it been designed by Ray's naturally speedy yet informal strokes of brush. |
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Three fonts for the
same word,
Sandesh |
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| But for the stories that would be printed only once, Ray more often than not preferred a casual style. Look at the example in which a fat king is seen taken aback. Here the title is written in a casual manner without involving the faintest of architectural elements we have seen in the main logos of the magazine, ‘Sandesh' . This lettering has a faint reflection of the handwriting of a common Bengali schoolboy of standard eight/nine. |
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| Logo of The Royal Ring |
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| You may now easily understand from the printed examples which font was designed for what purpose – for printing only once, or else, for being used many times. |
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| Typograph in casual style |
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One may find the same rules applicable to the Roman fonts designed by Ray.
‘Ray Roman'is totally architectural, therefore replicable.
‘Daphnis' is partially architectural. The upper parts of the letters are architectural, while the lower parts are not. There's a human touch in the lower parts that could only be done by a single person – the designer himself. Because, the lower parts of the letters are intentionally made strangely smaller than what those should have been. But exactly how much smaller the tail of ‘f ' would be than that of ‘g' was slightly impulsive. So, ‘Daphnis' is not really architectural. |
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| Ray Roman |
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| Daphnis |
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| Ray Bizzare |
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‘Ray Bizarre' is also partly architectural for the same reason. Yet it's more unpredictable. You cannot predict the look of look of ‘M' by studying the form of ‘Y'. But it faintly reminds one of the Quavers of stave notation. Though, the basic symmetry of Quavers is destroyed by willfully applied contrasts between the right and left legs of each and every letter.
‘Holiday Type' looks like a total whimsy – like an accidental creation in a game played among friends during a picnic.
Ray created only four Roman fonts, while he created numerous new fonts in Bengali – though not all the characters. The historic import of the creations is that new Bengali Ray Fonts certainly increased the delight of reading Bengali for the last half a century. |
Ray is the first and possibly the only designer of fonts, who inspired an entire race/community to love the beauty of the letters of their mother tongue. One of the very few reasons for the Bengali's love of reading books is their ability to appreciate the beauty of the Bengali letters discovered earliest and principally by Ray alone in the entire history of printing in India.
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| Holiday Script |
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| Ray Roman |
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| Daphnis |
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| Ray Bizzare |
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| Holiday Script |
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| Ray taught us to love letters. |
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| Holiday Script |
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