Odia Typography With Respect To Its Culture: An insight and interpretation by Prof. Paresh Choudhury [TALK]
August 21, 2013 I Rotary Club, Bhubaneswar, Odisha
Presenter: Prof. Paresh Choudhury
Moderated by: Dr. Pradosh Mishra
As part of the Utsha Foundation Lecture Series, eminent artist and designer - Paresh Choudhury was invited for a talk at the Rotary club on Odia script and font and whether there is an opportunity to experiment with it to create something new that could come handy for designing purposes. Several artists participated in the discussion moderated by Dr. Pradosh Mishra.
While Prof. Choudhury said he haD observed the famous Pipili crafts, Pattachitra, elements seen during Rath Yatra and many such lifestyle-related aspects, to conclude that this is why the Odia script is rounded, veteran artists begged to differ. Eminent artist Asim Basu indicated that Odia people used palm leaves to write in the past and any horizontal line would tear the leaf. Hence the script evolved into a rounded form with very few vertical lines.
There was wide consensus that research needed to be done to document the creative and scientific reasons leading to the development of the Odia Script. It was also noted that it was time to come up with various typefaces and fonts of Odia script that would work in designing new devices.