FRIDA（Type design）
The improvements in newsprint production and the tendencies of shrinking newspapers in size and making them closer to magazines are factors that contribute to make new experimentations with text types relevant.
Economy of text length in columns, captions or headlines and the need of complex hierarchy in typography may also be regarded as reasons to plan new newspaper typesystems. Frida’s design is an intent on bringing more liveliness to a newspaper face, mixing the Ionic / Clarendon model to the calligraphic nature of some typefaces from the late Renaissance, something uncommon to see in newspaper types. The design also tries to achieve a contemporary feeling and self-expression.
The Tamil version matches the proportions from the Latin, bearing in mind the possible use of the family in multi-lingual publications. Great part of the glyphs are consisted of round forms due to the early form of inscribing the script over dried palm-leaves. Problems related to the support to the script in computer applications make it difficult for companies that produced good Tamil types in the past to reissue their designs. The possibilities offered by OpenType, together with the development of a proper typesetting scheme, are regarded as the main factors to make Tamil typedesign flourish again.
