Indian graphic designer Shiva Nallaperumal has developed a versatile neo-grotesque typeface family that includes nine Indic scripts alongside Greek, Cyrillic, Armenian and Latin versions.
Oli Grotesk is intended as a warm, detailed and characterful alternative to the typically neutral neo-grotesque typefaces, which include familiar sans-serif fonts such as Arial, Helvetica and Univers. Nallaperumal spoke about the typeface at Hyderabad Design Week, which took place earlier this month.

Nallaperumal, who is the co-founder of Bombay-based graphic design and typography studio November, was influenced by the industrial aesthetics of mechanical writing tools when developing the typeface.
Unlike more conventional neo-grotesque font families, Nallaperumal designed Oli Grotesk to be both expressive and distinctive, as well as functional and easy to read. "Although the neo-grotesque genre tends toward cold, neutral typefaces, Oli's charming details glow with unreserved personality at large and small sizes alike, injecting a strong visual character into the text," said its creator.

From the outset, the typeface was designed as a system that could be translated into different scripts in addition to the Latin alphabet.
Nallaperumal teamed up with graphic designer Arya Purohit to develop the Indic versions of Oli, which will support all of India's writing scripts; Devanagari, Bangla, Gujarati, Gurmukhi, Urdu, Oriya, Tamil, Malayalam, Telugu and Kannada.
By offering the typef...