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ABOUT

Shiva Nallaperumal

Graphic designer from Chennai, who created the octagonal typeface Adian Grid (2012) as a student at DJ Academy of Design, Coimbatore, India. He also made Struktur (2012), a typeface based on Herbert Bayer's Universal Alphabet.

After graduating from DJ Academy of Design in Coimbatore, India, he started studying graphic design (MFA) at the Maryland Institute College of Art (MICA). One of his school projects there was the angular fat stencil typeface Enemy (2014, available at Lost Type). Shiva has worked as an intern with J. Abbott Miller's team at Pentagram and Grandmother Design in Mumbai, India.

At the Indian Type Foundry, Shiva helped with Rozha One (2014, free Google web font). This is a heavy didone typeface with large x-height, high contrast, and a harmonious balance between its Devanagari (designed by Tim Donaldson and Jyotish Sonowal) and Latin (designed by Shiva Nallaperumal). Github link.

The Indian Type Foundry published several typefaces at Google Web Fonts in 2014, including Rajdhani. Rajdhani is an Open Source typeface supporting both the Devanagari and the Latin scripts. The font family was developed for use in headlines and other display-sized text on screen. Its initial release includes five fonts. Satya Rajpurohit and Jyotish Sonowal developed the Devanagari component in the Rajdhani fonts together, while the Latin was designed by Shiva Nallaperumal.

Orwellian (2014) is a reversed-stress typeface designed for display use. It was inspired by the concepts explored by George Orwell in his monumental work Nineteen Eighty Four and follows Henry Caslon's Italian model. Buy it at Lost Type. Orwellian was hand hinted by Tom Grace of Virgo Type and mastered by Psy Ops in San Fransisco.

In 2015, Shiva published the informal comic book typeface Pancho (Indian Type Foundry) and the six-weight modulated sans family Khang (Indian Type Foundry).

In 2015, Namrata Goyal designed the Gurmukhi part of the free geometric sans font Roundo at Indian Type Foundry. Shiva Nallaperumal designed its Latin.

In 2016, Shiva designed the Trench superfamily, which consists of the heavily ink-trapped typeface families Trench Sans, Trench Rounded, and Trench Slab. Trench Rounded was inspired by Wim Crouwel's exhibition poster for the sculptor Claes Oldenburg. Trench Slab also appears at Fontshare.

Also in 2016, Ramakrishna Saiteja and Shiva Nallaperumal published the free Kannada / Latin typeface family Kolar. Each font's character set includes 925 glyphs. This massive range supports hundreds of unique Kannada-script conjuncts. Kolar's Latin script characters are all modified from Pablo Impallari's Libre Baskerville series. Github link.

Calcula is a display typeface that uses smart OpenType features to explore the space between lettering and typeface design, creating maze-like spaces between letters. Inspired by the geometric Kufic style of traditional Arabic calligraphy, Calcula is a functional OpenType typeface, with design principles that are rooted in lettering, in that each letter reacts to neighbouring letters, adapting to its context. Calcula (2017, Typotheque) was designed by Shiva Nallaperumal, with the help of Tal Leming, who programmed the GSUB features and wrote scripts that generate the ligatures, and Frederik Berlaen who created the custom scripts that made the new decorative styles possible.

Designer of Cabinet Grotesk (2017-2021) in eight styles, with two variable fonts. Originally called Cabinet Grotesque.

Faction (2018). A very black typeface in which white space loses against black space.

Oli Grotesk (2019, Typotheque). Shiva Nallaperumal plans to support all the writing scripts of India (Devanagari, Bangla, Gujarati, Gurmukhi, Urdu, Oriya, Tamil, Malayalam, Telugu and Kannada) in the same wide range of weights as its Latin fonts. The Indic versions of Oli are designed by Arya Purohit.

In 2019, Bild Monday released his heavy stencil typeface family Ma href="https://www.boldmonday.com/typefaces/rekall/">Rekall.

In 2015, Shiva won the SOTA Catalyst Award.

Home page. Behance link. Note: MyFonts writes the designer's name with an e instead of an a: Shiva Nalleperumal.

EXTERNAL LINKS
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INTERNAL LINKS
Type designers ⦿ Type designers ⦿ Indic language fonts ⦿ Type design in India ⦿ Bauhaus and type design ⦿ Octagonal typefaces ⦿ Type scene in Maryland ⦿ Stencil fonts ⦿ Military typefaces ⦿ Comic/cartoon fonts ⦿ Kannada fonts ⦿ Variable fonts ⦿