Style combination · Contrasts

Nirnaya Sagar Devanagari Typography × Urdu Katib Lithography

Urdu kept the katib's hand on the litho stone because type could not hold Nastaʿlīq, while Javaji took a lithographed almanac into metal type; choose a written page or a set one deliberately.

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

Mix them and make something Nirnaya Sagar Devanagari Typography Urdu Katib Lithography

A sample layout drawn from the recipe: shapes from Nirnaya Sagar Devanagari Typography, their arrangement from Nirnaya Sagar Devanagari Typography, the finish from Nirnaya Sagar Devanagari 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) Urdu Katib Lithography

Type from Urdu Katib Lithography: Brush & pen calligraphy
Hand-lettering

Nirnaya Sagar Devanagari Typography avoids hand-lettering: this is where the two pull against each other, which is the point of the contrast.
Colour from Urdu Katib Lithography: Monochrome
Light ground
Form from Nirnaya Sagar Devanagari Typography: Rectilinear
Rules & bars
Composition from Nirnaya Sagar Devanagari Typography: Classical text block
Layered information
Surface from Nirnaya Sagar Devanagari Typography: Paper & letterpress bite

The type

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

Display · Urdu Katib Lithography

Notice

Rakkas, standing in for Lahori Nastaʿlīq (katib hand)

Text · Nirnaya Sagar Devanagari Typography

Devanagari as Javaji Dadaji's Bombay type foundry (1864) and Nirnaya Sagar Press (1869) cut and printed it: upright metal type with a strong headline, cut with the punch-cutter Ranoji Aru, and enough conjunct and 'Akhand' sorts to set Sanskrit, Vedic accents and Marathi whole. Pages stack root text, smaller commentary and footnoted variants in black on pale paper, almost without ornament. Naik credits it with the classical Devanagari face, the basis of Monotype's 12 pt Devanagari; digital fonts such as Adishila trace it.

Libre Caslon Text; Nirnaya Sagar Devanagari Typography used Nirnaya Sagar 14 pt Balbodh book face, later marketed as '14 pt. No. 1, Shantaram' and 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

The colours

The ground and leading colours come from Urdu Katib Lithography, 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) Urdu Katib Lithography

#eee6d2 ground · 36%
#141312 ink · 14%
#a32a2a accent · 18%
#a08a62 accent · 14%
#c9bfa6 accent · 10%
#5f5a52 accent · 8%

As CSS

:root {
  --ground: #eee6d2;
  --ink: #141312;
  --accent-1: #a32a2a;
  --accent-2: #a08a62;
  --accent-3: #c9bfa6;
  --accent-4: #5f5a52;
  --font-display: "Rakkas", cursive;
  --font-text: "Libre Caslon Text", 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.

Urdu Katib Lithography: Urdu pages often carry Qur'anic phrases, the names of God and the Prophet and religious verse; never use Nastaʿlīq as meaningless texture or set invented text that imitates it, and have every word read by a fluent Urdu reader. Katibs were rarely credited; name the calligrapher where known, and commission a working khushnawees rather than tracing archival pages.

The two styles

A vintage-style Marathi library poster printed in black on textured cream paper features an enormous Devanagari heading above centered informational text. Double rules and small floral ornaments divide the opening hours, printer details, and notices.

1864–present · South Asia Nirnaya Sagar Devanagari Typography (Bombay Metal Type) Devanagari as Javaji Dadaji's Bombay type foundry (1864) and Nirnaya Sagar Press (1869) cut and printed it: upright metal type with a strong headline, cut with the punch-cutter Ranoji Aru, and enough conjunct and 'Akhand' sorts to set Sanskrit, Vedic accents and Marathi whole. Pages stack root text, smaller commentary and footnoted variants in black on pale paper, almost without ornament. Naik credits it with the classical Devanagari face, the basis of Monotype's 12 pt Devanagari; digital fonts such as Adishila trace it. 1837–present · South Asia Urdu Katib Lithography For about a century and a half Urdu chose lithography over movable type, because metal type could not reproduce the sloping, stacked ligatures of Nastaʿlīq. Teams of katibs wrote whole newspapers, books and advertisements by hand on transfer paper, nesting each cascading word into dense, hand-ruled columns under enlarged calligraphic headlines. Noori Nastaliq (1981), digitised from Ahmed Mirza Jamil's hand, carried the katib's letterforms into computer composition.