Style combination · Contrasts

Nirnaya Sagar Devanagari Typography × Song–Ming Woodblock Book Typography

Song–Ming squares each character into an equal cell inside a ruled woodblock frame; Nirnaya Sagar hangs syllables of varying width from a continuous headline in an unframed metal-type block.

From the research on Nirnaya Sagar Devanagari Typography (Bombay Metal Type)

Mix them and make something Nirnaya Sagar Devanagari Typography Song–Ming Woodblock Book Typography

A sample layout drawn from the recipe: shapes from Song–Ming Woodblock Book Typography, their arrangement from Nirnaya Sagar Devanagari Typography, the finish from Song–Ming Woodblock Book Typography. Not a real work, and not an image of either style.

What each style brings

Each part of the design comes from the style with the stronger say in it, and each style gives at least two.

Nirnaya Sagar Devanagari Typography (Bombay Metal Type) Song–Ming Woodblock Book Typography (Songti / Mincho)

Type from Nirnaya Sagar Devanagari Typography: Brush & pen calligraphy
Tight setting
Colour from Song–Ming Woodblock Book Typography: Monochrome
Light ground
Form from Song–Ming Woodblock Book Typography: Rectilinear
Rules & bars
Composition from Nirnaya Sagar Devanagari Typography: Classical text block
Layered information
Surface from Song–Ming Woodblock Book Typography: Carved line
Paper & letterpress bite

The type

Open fonts standing in for each style’s own type, which is often hand-drawn or commercial.

Display · Nirnaya Sagar Devanagari Typography

Civic

Yatra One, standing in for Nirnaya-sagar Pica No. 1, the basis of Monotype's 12 pt Devanagari, and the Nirnaya-sagar pica struck from Ranoji Raoji Aru's punches that Tilak's Kesari used

Text · Song–Ming Woodblock Book Typography

The page and letter of the East Asian book. Song block cutters copied the regular script of Tang masters; from the mid-16th century Ming cutters straightened it into a knife-made letter of thin horizontals, thick verticals and triangular stroke ends. Equal square characters run in right-to-left vertical columns in a ruled frame folded at a central column. As metal type in Shanghai and Nagasaki it became Mincho, Myeongjo and the standard CJK text face. Frame, rules and fold column belong to the woodblock page; type keeps the letter, the square and, in Japan and Taiwan, the vertical column.

Shippori Mincho; Song–Ming Woodblock Book Typography used Song block-cut regular script after Ouyang Xun, Yan Zhenqing and Liu Gongquan and Ming-style Songti / Mingti, the straightened 'craftsman's' letter, mature by the Wanli era

The colours

The ground and leading colours come from Song–Ming Woodblock Book Typography, with a counter-accent from Nirnaya Sagar Devanagari Typography. The ink reads on the ground at 4.5:1 or more.

Nirnaya Sagar Devanagari Typography (Bombay Metal Type) Song–Ming Woodblock Book Typography (Songti / Mincho)

#f1e9d6 ground · 36%
#16130f ink · 14%
#b5342b accent · 18%
#a08a62 accent · 14%
#d6c49c accent · 10%
#2e3d5c accent · 8%

As CSS

:root {
  --ground: #f1e9d6;
  --ink: #16130f;
  --accent-1: #b5342b;
  --accent-2: #a08a62;
  --accent-3: #d6c49c;
  --accent-4: #2e3d5c;
  --font-display: "Yatra One", cursive;
  --font-text: "Shippori Mincho", serif;
}

Use it with care

Nirnaya Sagar Devanagari Typography (Bombay Metal Type): Much of the press's output is scripture and ritual text, from the Vedas with their accents to Purāṇas, stotras and the almanac that fixes the dates of rites and festivals, so never use mantras, verses or divine names as texture, crop, mirror or garble them, or put them on floors, footwear or throwaway goods. Have every Sanskrit, Marathi or Hindi word set with correct conjuncts and read by a fluent reader, since image models invent pseudo-Devanagari with broken headlines and impossible ligatures, never present a generated page as a Nirnaya Sagar imprint, and credit the founder and his punch-cutter Ranoji Aru as well as the pandit editors.

Song–Ming Woodblock Book Typography (Songti / Mincho): Have any Chinese, Japanese or Korean text set and proofread by a fluent reader: Song, Mincho and Myeongjo fonts draw some characters differently for each locale, and pseudo-characters, mirrored glyphs or random hanzi used as texture read as nonsense or worse. Pages of Buddhist sutras and other scripture carry devotional text; do not crop them into decoration.