Nupuram Malayalam Typeface

A Malayalam typeface, inspired from the early Malayalam movie titles designs. The curves are fluid, bold and expressive.

Download: Latest versions can be downloaded from smc.org.in/fonts/nupuram

Taking full advantage of variable font technology, Nupuram offers an unprecedented level of flexibility, all from a single font file. Nupuram has 4 variable axes: Weight, Width, Slant and Softness.

As a variable font, Nupuram gives you fine-grained control over each one of its styles. However, it also comes with 64 predefined styles that are easy to access through your font menu. Called named instances¹, these work just like regular static fonts do.

¹ Named instance: a predetermined location in the designspace of a variable font, similar to the "static instances" that are familiar in traditional digital fonts.

The Variable font capability makes Nupuram stylistically flexible and warmly energetic.

Nupuram is also available as multiple fonts with different weights.

Variation axes

Nupuram has the following axes:

Axis	Tag	Range	Default	Description
Weight	`wght`	100 to 900	400	Thin to Black. Can be defined with usual font-weight property.
Slant	`slnt`	-15 to 0	0	Upright (0°) to Slanted (about 15°)
Width	`wdth`	75 to 125	100	Condensed to Expanded. Can be defined with usual font-stretch property.
Soft	`SOFT`	0 to 100	50	Sharp to normal to SuperSoft terminals

Axis Definitions

Weight wght: 100 to 900. The overall thickness of letters and the darkness of text composed with them.

Recommended use: Differences in weight can provide emphasis in text, show user interaction, or adjust the tone of communication. For light text on dark backgrounds, 400 (“Regular”) tends to be appropriate for text and code. For dark text on a light background, it can be beneficial to adjust the weight upwards to 500 (“Medium”).
Slant slnt: 0 to -15. The "forward lean" of letters. Note: -15 (negative 15) corresponds to a 15° clockwise slant, due to type design's roots in geometry.

Recommended use: The Malayalam script with its glyph characteristics does not have an established slant behavior. Mostly we mimic the slanting in latin. And we often call italic. Note that italic and slant are not same. Use Slant as a secondary way to emphasize text or vary typographic tone. In text, it can be useful to use a partial slant of around -12.
Width wdth: 75 to 125%. The percentage of letter width. 75% is 'Condensed', where the letters are horizontally condensed to 75% of original width. 125% is 'Expanded' where the letters are horizontally stretched to 125% of original width.

Recommended use: The condense or expand can be used to achieve precise typographic layout in a predefined rendering space. The content can be adjusted in this way to "fit" the space. Be aware of the legibility degradation when doing this.
Soft SOFT: 0 to 100. The terminals of the letters of Nupuram are slightly rounded by default. This is also known as Soft terminals. To make the terminal sharp - sharp cuts at ends, use 'Sharp' value 0. To make the terminals more rounded using a higher value. Using a value 100 means, the terminals are half circles with diameter equals the terminal width.

Recommended use: Roundness or Sharpness at terminals can help change the tone of communication, say from mechanical to human, from formal to informal.

Nupuram Color

Nupuram also has a Color font version with COLRv1 specification. The colors can be customized, for example using CSS. For applications that does not support COLRv1 spec, there is a COLRv0 variant as well. Support for Color fonts vary a lot across applications, please refer this site for a detailed reading. Google Chrome and related browsers support COLRv1 in their latest versions.

Nupuram Color is also a variable font. The weight axis changes the offset in z-axis.

Axis	Tag	Range	Default	Description
Weight	`wght`	100 to 900	400	Thin to Black. Can be defined with usual font-weight property.

Nupuram Color font gives 18 predefined pallettes that can be selected by users. Or a user can specify the colors using CSS for example.

This color font uses 3 colors for its shadow-ish look. They are Dark, Light, Base colors. Base is the facing color, Light is the central glowing area color. Dark is the color for the shadow part. The colors are used to create a gradient internally.

The following CSS customizes the pallette to give a rendering given below:

.content {
  font-family: 'NupuramColor';
  font-palette: --custom;
}

@font-palette-values --custom  {
  font-family: 'NupuramColor';
  /* Change this to a value between 0 and 18 to chose a supplied palette. */
  base-palette: 0;
  /* Or provide the colors directly to override palette */
  override-colors: 0 #FFD700, 1 #FFD700, 2 #1E0303;
}

You may try the color selector provided in the Nupuram font playground. If you want to create a new font with the provided colors, there is a tool called DJR's Color Font Customizer.

Nupuram Arrows

For educational purposes, to learn the pen movement for writing a letter, Nupuram comes with a variant named Nupuram Arrows. This is a Color font.

Nupuram Dots

Again, for educational purposes, to practice in worksheets, Nupuram comes with a variant named Nupuram Dots.

Nupuram Display

Nupuram Display is a Display typeface to use with large point sizes. Its terminals are flat with rounded corners and has optimized xheight for large sizes.

Nupuram Calligraphy

Nupuram Calligraphy simulates a wide nib Calligraphy pen with nib rotation at 40°. This is a variable font with weight axis. The width of the calligraphy pen can be varied for getting different weights.

Axis	Tag	Range	Default	Description
Weight	`wght`	100 to 900	400	Thin to Black. Can be defined with usual font-weight property.

Using the fonts

Download the latest fonts from the Releases (Look under the "Assets" of the latest release, download the zip, and then open that zip)
Install the fonts on your system. Depending on the Operating system, the installation steps vary. In general, Clicking on the font file give the option to install it.

Using Variable font in web pages

Varibale fonts save bandwith in web pages by having a single font to download, while providing all style variations. Using them on webpages is a big topic. Please use a good tutorial like MDN

In general, you should link in the font with @font-face

@font-face {
 font-family: 'Nupuram';
 src: url('path/to/font/Nupuram-VF.woff2') format('woff2-variations');
 font-weight: 100 900;
 font-stretch: 75% 125%;
 font-style: oblique 0deg 15deg;
}

Then, you can use the font with both font-weight and font-variation-settings. Using CSS custom properties will help to avoid some caveats of property inheritance.

Using Color fonts in web

Since latest Chrome and Firefox browsers support COLRv1 spec which allows customization of pallettes and color gradients and all other browser does not support it, we need to use some feature support testing in CSS.

/* Old browsers and Safari - use Colrv0 */
@supports not (font-palette: --custom) {
  @font-face {
    font-family: "NupuramShadowColor";
    src: url(../fonts/webfonts/Nupuram-Color-v0.woff2) format("woff2");
  }
}
/* Latest browsers - Use colrv1 */
@supports (font-palette: --custom) {
  @font-face {
    font-family: "NupuramShadowColor";
    src: url(../path/to/Nupuram-Color-v1.woff2) format("woff2");
  }
}

Building the fonts

Install the required software packages, assuming a debian based GNU/Linux Operating system

apt-get update -y
apt-get install -y make python3-pip python3-venv python3-yaml texlive-metapost libharfbuzz-bin

To build, set up the virtual environment and activate it.

virtualenv -p python3 venv
source venv/bin/activate

Then install requirements:

pip install -U -r requirements.txt

Then run make to build everything

make

This will take more than 15 minutes to build everything. But if you have a multi core processor, you can speed up this by using parallel build. Assuming you have 8 core system(8 CPUs)

make -j8

Language support

All the Malayalam characters defined in Unicode version 15 are present in the font. Nupuram also has latin script support. Nupuram supports 294 languages convering approximately 2.8B speakers(Calculated using hyperglot tool)

Supported languages

Acheron
Achinese
Acholi
Afar
Afrikaans
Alekano
Aleut
Amahuaca
Amarakaeri
Amis
Anaang
Andaandi, Dongolawi
Anuta
Ao Naga
Aragonese
Arbëreshë Albanian
Arvanitika Albanian
Asháninka
Ashéninka Perené
Asu (Tanzania)
Balinese
Bari
Basque
Batak Dairi
Batak Karo
Batak Mandailing
Batak Simalungun
Batak Toba
Bemba (Zambia)
Bena (Tanzania)
Bikol
Bislama
Borana-Arsi-Guji Oromo
Bosnian
Breton
Buginese
Candoshi-Shapra
Caquinte
Caribbean Hindustani
Cashibo-Cacataibo
Catalan
Cebuano
Central Aymara
Central Kurdish
Chamorro
Chavacano
Chiga
Chiltepec Chinantec
Chokwe
Chuukese
Cimbrian
Cofán
Congo Swahili
Cook Islands Māori
Cornish
Corsican
Creek
Crimean Tatar
Croatian
Czech
Danish
Dehu
Dutch
Eastern Abnaki
Eastern Arrernte
Eastern Oromo
Embu
English
Ese Ejja
Faroese
Fijian
Filipino
Finnish
French
Friulian
Galician
Ganda
Garifuna
Ga’anda
German
Gheg Albanian
Gilbertese
Gooniyandi
Gourmanchéma
Guadeloupean Creole French
Gusii
Haitian
Hani
Hawaiian
Hiligaynon
Ho-Chunk
Hopi
Huastec
Hungarian
Hän
Icelandic
Iloko
Inari Sami
Indonesian
Irish
Istro Romanian
Italian
Ixcatlán Mazatec
Jamaican Creole English
Japanese
Javanese
Jola-Fonyi
K'iche'
Kabuverdianu
Kalaallisut
Kalenjin
Kamba (Kenya)
Kaonde
Karelian
Kashubian
Kekchí
Kenzi, Mattokki
Khasi
Kikuyu
Kimbundu
Kinyarwanda
Kituba (DRC)
Kongo
Konzo
Kuanyama
Kven Finnish
Kölsch
Ladin
Ladino
Latgalian
Latin
Ligurian
Lithuanian
Lombard
Low German
Lower Sorbian
Luba-Lulua
Lule Sami
Luo (Kenya and Tanzania)
Luxembourgish
Macedo-Romanian
Makhuwa
Makhuwa-Meetto
Makonde
Makwe
Malagasy
Malaysian
Maltese
Mandinka
Manx
Maore Comorian
Maori
Mapudungun
Marshallese
Matsés
Mauritian Creole
Meriam Mir
Meru
Minangkabau
Mirandese
Mohawk
Montenegrin
Munsee
Murrinh-Patha
Mwani
Mískito
Naga Pidgin
Ndonga
Neapolitan
Ngazidja Comorian
Niuean
Nobiin
Nomatsiguenga
North Marquesan
North Ndebele
Northern Kurdish
Northern Qiandong Miao
Northern Uzbek
Norwegian
Nyanja
Nyankole
Occitan
Ojitlán Chinantec
Orma
Oroqen
Palauan
Paluan
Pampanga
Papantla Totonac
Papiamento
Pedi
Picard
Pichis Ashéninka
Piemontese
Pijin
Pintupi-Luritja
Pipil
Pohnpeian
Polish
Portuguese
Potawatomi
Purepecha
Quechua
Romanian
Romansh
Rotokas
Rundi
Rwa
Samburu
Samoan
Sango
Sangu (Tanzania)
Saramaccan
Sardinian
Scottish Gaelic
Sena
Seri
Seselwa Creole French
Shambala
Shawnee
Shipibo-Conibo
Shona
Sicilian
Silesian
Slovak
Slovenian
Soga
Somali
Soninke
South Marquesan
South Ndebele
Southern Aymara
Southern Qiandong Miao
Southern Sami
Southern Sotho
Spanish
Sranan Tongo
Standard Estonian
Standard Latvian
Standard Malay
Sundanese
Swahili
Swati
Swedish
Swiss German
Tagalog
Tahitian
Taita
Tedim Chin
Tetum
Tetun Dili
Tiv
Tok Pisin
Tokelau
Tonga (Tonga Islands)
Tonga (Zambia)
Tosk Albanian
Tsonga
Tswana
Tumbuka
Turkish
Turkmen
Tzeltal
Tzotzil
Uab Meto
Upper Guinea Crioulo
Upper Sorbian
Venetian
Veps
Võro
Wallisian
Walloon
Walser
Wangaaybuwan-Ngiyambaa
Waray (Philippines)
Warlpiri
Wayuu
Welsh
West Central Oromo
Western Abnaki
Western Frisian
Wik-Mungkan
Wiradjuri
Wolof
Xhosa
Yanesha'
Yao
Yapese
Yindjibarndi
Yucateco
Zapotec
Zulu
Záparo

Credits

See FONTLOG.md for details on contributions.

Contributing

See CONTRIBUTING.md for policies around contributing to the project.

License

This Font Software is licensed under the SIL Open Font License, Version 1.1. This license is available with a FAQ at: https://scripts.sil.org/OFL

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README.md

README.md

Nupuram Malayalam Typeface

Variation axes

Axis Definitions

Nupuram Color

Nupuram Arrows

Nupuram Dots

Nupuram Display

Nupuram Calligraphy

Using the fonts

Using Variable font in web pages

Using Color fonts in web

Building the fonts

Language support

Credits

Contributing

License

Files

README.md

Latest commit

History

README.md

File metadata and controls

Nupuram Malayalam Typeface

Variation axes

Axis Definitions

Nupuram Color

Nupuram Arrows

Nupuram Dots

Nupuram Display

Nupuram Calligraphy

Using the fonts

Using Variable font in web pages

Using Color fonts in web

Building the fonts

Language support

Credits

Contributing

License