Last year I wrote a proposal for a Sinhala typography research project. The aim of this project was to develop local typography and orthography. My hope is this will benefit the design community and revitalise indigenous lettering. Since then, the students and I have been working with different local and international professionals, through research workshops to understand the anatomy of the sinhala characters. The project seems to keep getting bigger as new information is discovered.
One person in particular who I have had the pleasure of working with, is typography Prof. Timothy Donaldson from Falmouth University.
Tim flew to Lanka a few months ago, and directed a series of workshops with the graphic design students. His insight, knowledge and experience was inspiring and helpful. He has written a remarkable typography book called 'Shapes For Sounds'.
Not to long ago, he wrote an article the project for Eye Magazine, called 'Sinhala's Voluptuous Letters'.
On the last day Tim scribed the answers to a questionnaire we had given out to different people. The subject of the questionnaire was Sinhala Typography. This was intended to see how people within the design community felt about the current state of Sinhala typography. I photographed the performance and edited the +1000 photos into a stop motion. The music is by a local band called Elephant Foot.
More to come... Student work coming up next...
