What is Bharat Font? All About India's Very Own Font That Integrates Elements From 12 Languages

India may soon have its own "national font", courtesy of advertising group Rediffusion’s sister agency Everest which has launched "Bharat" font that is rooted in Indian-ness.

The Bharat font was launched in Mumbai over the Independence Day weekend. Photo courtesy: PR handout

India may soon have its own "national font", courtesy of advertising group Rediffusion’s sister agency Everest which has launched "Bharat" font that is rooted in Indian-ness and visibly exudes Indian-ness and projects to the world the essence of Indian-ness. The launch of Bharat font commemorates two occasions: 75 years of India’s Independence and the agency's own 75th anniversary.

The Bharat font integrates elements from 12 scheduled Indian languages. The font includes alphabets that are rooted in the letter’s phonetic sound in the parent Indian language, including Telugu, Devnagari, Odia, Tamil, Gurmukhi, and Kannada among others.

For readability, the Bharat font has been tested with consumer groups. After initial exposure, there were no reading or usage issues, said a report.

The Bharat font was launched in Mumbai over the Independence Day weekend by Mahindra Group chairman and noted industrialist, Anand Mahindra. Dr. Sandeep Goyal, managing director of Rediffusion and Kalyani Srivastava, its joint president were also present at the event.

India would be the only country to get its own national font after Sweden which has a font of its own called Sweden Sans, which was created in 2014 by a Stockholm agency Söderhavet. The agency had designed a modern geometric typeface inspired by 1950s signs to be used by the government and by business corporations, a report said.

It took six months and a team of typographers at Everest agency and Rediffusion Design Studios, led by Virendra Tivrekar to create the Bharat font. “We looked at all the letters of the alphabet in all the Indian languages to draw inspiration and figure out which of these we could adapt, reshape and redesign into a uniquely different font that would coalesce the goodness of India’s diversity into a visual unity,” Virender Tivrekar, Executive Creative Director, Rediffusion Studios, said in a statement.