Kannada: How big should the ‘ottu’s’ be?
These small-forms in Kannada may seem to occupy a lot of space. Local sign-painters have a nifty alternative.
Ottakshara’s – If you’re a reader of Kannada, you’ve seen these around. The term ottakshara is an amalgamation of ottu (compressed) and akshara (letter). These are small forms of consonants that snap diagonally below Kannada letters to form conjuncts.
As a graphic designer who had been used to designing with the Latin (English) script, I found the Kannada ottu’s to be a difficult task to deal with in typography. In text, I found that Kannada requires more line spacing than Latin, to accommodate for the ottu’s. On setting the line spacing to 1.5 times the type size, one can achieve a soothing and equal grey texture in the text.
However, these small forms seem to pose a problem when they appear in headlines over a paragraph of text. There is a sea of white space between the headline and the text, which disallows close-cut layouts as is possible in Latin. Here’s this layouting phenomenon played out using two Kannada fonts.
I used to think of this as but a characteristic of the script that must be embraced and worked around, rather than lamented for being different from Latin. However, I’ve recently started observing the ottu’s of painted Kannada signages in Bangalore. What I’ve found is very exciting indeed.
First, I must examine the ratio of the ottu to the basic Kannada character. I have picked the character Da (ಡ) and its corresponding ottu form. Together, they form ಡ್ಡ (DDa).
(Trivia: Note how the ottu form of the main consonant ‘ದ’ looks just like it, but without the top hat. This is known as a talekattu rahita ottakshara – a ottakshara without the talekattu – where ‘talekattu’ refers to the top hat.)
From this chart, we can see that the typefaces with the lowest ratio must be ideal for setting headlines. Anek Kannada takes the cake with 0.54, followed closely by Hind Mysuru at 0.56. Let’s try to substitute the earlier example’s heading with Anek Kannada.
The whitespace is managed better here, but it is not ideal for observing economical spacing. Let us now turn our attention to street lettering.
Notice how tiny the ottu’s are? The ratio is only 0.29!
While this proportion would not work in body copy, it works at a larger scale. The word context that the larger letters provide also helps to identify the tiny ottu’s that come below them. This is not a one-off either; sign painters use these tiny ottakshara’s everywhere to conserve space and still champion legibility.
Conclusion
Context matters immensely. If I wish to design a display Kannada face, I will keep in mind that ottakshara’s with text typeface proportions may not be apt. Keeping the ottu’s small will allow for snappier layouts with better conservation of space. It also struck me that taking a simple walk can do wonders for my typographical insight.
