Font Spotlight: Sanskrit Style Typefaces
What is Sanskrit, and When Would I Use It?
Sanskrit - and no, it really isn’t sandscript! - is a historical language, listed among one of the 22 scheduled languages India. It’s a language that is sacred to Hinduism and Buddhism. dating back to 500BC, and is referred to as the language of the divas and demigods. Spoken Sanskrit is considered to be a dying language and is becoming less and less used in the modern world, and is making no progression like that of a thriving language.
Like Latin, while the language is “dying,” it is still wildly used in both religious documents as well as historical scientific documents, and scientific terms in India are often based in Sanskrit. The use of Sanskrit slokas in advertising has become wildly popular at the turn of the century.
Today, the use of Sanskrit in the home has diminished, but adds a nice classic Indian feel to projects. Great for religious event invitations, and becoming increasingly popular in logo design and product marketing, Sanskrit is undergoing a new type of revival. If you’ve ever wondered about Sanskrit as a font or have been looking for Sanskrit-style typefaces, this article will lead you in the right direction!
Far From Real
Far From Real provides a collection of seven Sanskrit-style typefaces for download, each with a distinct feel. These fonts are one hundred percent free to use and include the installation notes in the pack with the fonts themselves. This is a nice, basic set of Sanskrit fonts for you to use within your projects. Currently available for both Windows machines and Macs running OS X.
PIXymbols Fauz Sanskrit
If you want a Romanized typeface that offers up a great feel of classic Sanskrit, PIXymbols Faux Sanskrit allows you to write with the same feeling as Sanskrit but offering the readability of normal Romanized typefaces. This typeface is great for those who have no ability to read traditional Sanskrit, or those looking to create a classic Indian feel while targeting a non-native audience. Faux Sanskrit will run you about 24 dollars and is currently available for Windows only.
Kwintessential’s Free Sanskrit Fonts
Kwintessential offers five Sanskrit typefaces for free to anyone looking to download, great for anyone looking to try out different fonts without making any sort of monetary commitment. Simply right click the font name and save it to your hard drive and install within your font folder.
Image Credits
Samples of fonts are intended for demonstration purposes only and are still property of their original creators.
Sanskrit sample at top of page: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:John_3_16_Sanskrit_translation_grantham_script.gif
