Thought about integrating the Rupee Symbol into basic fonts to allow easy use. Aside from the entire nationalistic hoopla – it is a cool symbol. And it definitely needs to be redesigned so that it can be integrated into all basic fonts without sticking out. The folks at Foradian have tried to do so. They’ve explained quite nicely how to install fonts – so check them out.
Below are my efforts at making a Times New Roman Rupee font and an Arial Rupee font. I’ve used the same grave symbol ` (button above the tab key) to be the Rupee symbol.
Here are the Times New Roman Rupee Font & Arial Rupee Font. Available for download in ttf and odf.
Click to download:
Times New Roman Rupee (521)
Arial Rupee Font (521)
How to install:
1. Click on link above, save file, OK
2. Unzip and extract files
3. On Windows Vista, right click on “Times New Roman Rupee” and press install.
Click to download:
Nice effort..but, IMO, not quite there yet!
any suggestions? There is a length problem, I know. Also, in the Times font the second horizontal bar is slightly low – but that was so that it doesn’t look all ghitch pitch when it’s a size 12pt font.
It would be difficult to give suggestions without actually doing it…so, may be one of these days I will draw a version and then we can compare notes. However, my first impression:
Times:
The top horizontal with stubby serif on left seems like a no-no..may be both horizontal strokes can have diagonal chamfer/cut or some other resolution. Top curve of R does not look very elegant and is bumpy. The diagonal of R where it meets the curve above, needs to move to left..maybe this junction needs to be worked-upon. Also, when compared to Arial, symbol seems to be more weighted to center/right. In my opinion, when weighted to left like in Arial, it would have better character.
Arial:
Again I feel top curve and its junction with diagonal can be better. Overall it seems better resolved then Times. That slight left weighted gives it a character. All joints may/will need some optical correction.
Hey, just some random observations…nothing in stone.
Nice start but couple of points:
- The lower horizontal bar needs to be closer to the upper one. It doesn’t look cluttered if you draw the lines nicely.
- Why don’t you take the base ‘R’ from these fonts and then reform to make the symbol. This is the guideline from the original designer and this is how he arrived at the symbol.
- Code the symbol at U+20A8 instead of `. This will allow people to search for the symbol using web search engines. If you use `, there will be no way for a search engine to distinguish between the uses of the symbol and the uses of the reverse quote (which are common in Unix). See here: http://www.wazu.jp/gallery/Test_CurrencySymbols.html to confirm that the Rupee symbol has the codepoint U+20A8.
BTW, how do you create fonts anyway? Are there programs available to do this?
Thanks for the pointers – I’ll redo them as and when I get more time. There is a software to make them – I use Fontlab Studio. It’s pretty simple once you get a hang of it.
A couple more links for you:
Very interesting discussion on the glyph: http://typophile.com/node/72290
Font with better Rupee encoding than Foradian: http://rajudasonline.spaces.live.com/
Oh, one correction to my comments. Based on the discussion at typophile.com, I think the better way to do this symbol is to start with the Devanagari Ra and draw a thinner currency bar than to start with the Latin R.