Display typefaces based
on the rich living folk and indigenous craft tradition of South Asia and beyond

Hundreds of India's craft traditions - from tribal tattoos to hand embroideries -are disappearing, and when they go, the voices and memories they carry go with them. Designer and researcher Ishan Khosla, whose work is held in the permanent collections of SFMOMA and the Fukuoka Asian Art Museum, has spent over 15 years finding them an unlikely sanctuary: as digital fonts in our screens. In this talk, he reveals how he collaborates with craftswomen in remote villages - from Kutch to the forests of Central India - to turn fading motifs into digital typefaces used today in theatres and museums across the world. Ishan Khosla is a visual artist, designer, and founder of The Typecraft Initiative — a platform that collaborates with tribal women, refugees, and indigenous craftspeople to transform endangered art forms into working digital typefaces. Holding an MFA from the School of Visual Arts, New York, his work has been exhibited at the London Design Biennial, Ginza Graphic Gallery (Tokyo), and RMIT Gallery (Melbourne), and is held in the permanent collections of the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art (SFMOMA) and the Fukuoka Asian Art Museum. His essays have been published by Bloomsbury, Marg, and Macmillan, and he lectures globally at leading typography and design forums including ATypI, AIGA, and TypoBerlin. Through Typecraft, fonts built from Baiga tribal tattoos, Rabari embroideries, and Khatri tie-dye are now in active use by institutions across four continents — each one a living archive of a culture that refused to disappear. This talk was given at a TEDx event using the TED conference format but independently organized by a local community. Learn more at https://www.ted.com/tedx

Talk given at the SADEA* ANGAN 2026 conference // *South Asian Design Educators Alliance This paper examines insights from long-term field collaborations with craftspeople from South Asia and beyond, including Rajput, Dhebaria Rabari and Meghwal Maaru embroiderers, Bandhani tie-dyers and Ajrakh dyers and printers form Kutch in Western India; Central Indian tattooists; Mithila folk artists from the eastern Indian state of Bihar; Chiku-kolam and Chittara artists from South India; and, embroiderers from Gaza, Palestine. Through co-creating, letterforms that evolve into typefaces, these engagements are translated into design pedagogy via workshops with design students from around the world. The paper proposes a framework for “desifying design,” drawing from the embodied, process-driven, and often non-linear methods of craft practitioners—approaches that differ sharply from the Modernist, colonial legacies shaping most contemporary design schools. As many of these craft traditions face decline, the typefaces function not only as archival continuations but as active pedagogical tools. Central to this is the emphasis on alternative making processes—such as creating without preliminary drawing—which foreground tacit knowledge, intuition, and context-specific practices. Building on the author’s earlier MFA thesis, desi: design school India (2004–05), the paper situates these methods within broader questions of decolonizing design education. It also reflects on lessons from the informal economy, arguing that such perspectives can expand how design is taught and practiced. Ultimately, the paper advocates for integrating indigenous methodologies to foster more locally grounded, critically engaged, and diverse design futures. It advocates for the reframing of type away from its colonial and exclusionary past—as tools of enslavement, conversions and domination—to one that is inclusive, dynamic and participatory shaped by community involvement .

The peacock in the desert: the materiality of Rabari nomadic pastoral embroidery as type design — Ishan Khosla I founded The Typecraft Initiative in 2011 as a collaborative to work with type as a basis for inclusion. We work with marginalized communities—women, refugees, minorities and people from subordinate castes—in South Asia and beyond. We see type design not just as an final outcome to construct a font; but as a genesis to build a tool of creation, and, a repository of rich cultural knowledge and heritage that are embedded in the shapes of letters. Oral traditions are made visual through embroideries with their own hidden language which are carefully translated first as physical hand embroidered letters and then traced and honed on the screen, with an intent to keep the material traces alive. Embroidery is a critical expression of the Rabari desert culture said to have come to India from far away lands such as Uzbekistan. It is a means to communicate their identity, rites of passage and social mores. As this knowledge is waning, can the embroideries with its motifs and borders that now find their way as icons included in the typeface to tell new stories but also to not forget the old? This project takes type design to the limits of digital possibility and physical materiality and celebrates nomadic cultural expression, whose footsteps might get lost in the sands of the desert, but not in these experimental typefaces. The Rabari typeface comes in two versions, one which has different degrees of contrast, based on its varying density—and the other, Rabari Rangeela, which emphasizes the dazzling nature of this community’s maximalist embroidery that belies the bleakness of the desert. I will also be talking about two other desert-based crafts made into typefaces of Kutch and Rajasthan (India) and Sindh (Pakistan), that are both crafted by the muslim Khatri dyeing community of the region—bandhani or tie-dye and Ajrakh block printing. The former as a Arabic (Urdu) typeface and the latter as a modular, Latin-script typeface.

Kal is the word for tomorrow and yesterday is the same in Hindi. Making elaborate patterns and shapes on the body has an ancient history. There is a universal desire to etch marks on skin, on animals, and on objects to identify, worship, or simply beautify. This phenomenon is not limited to skin, but also to clothing and everyday objects. In India, the craft of making and designing embellishments has a long syncretic relationship. However, Indian crafts are in a state of decline and many have disappeared. The typecraft initiative develops and displays typefaces based on handmade Indian crafts and tribal arts. This initiative began as a way to give new meaning and context to these crafts and the people who make them. Unlike most type foundries, their goal is not just to make a typeface, but to ensure it’s multifaceted. This includes encouraging craftspeople to use design thinking methodologies while engaging with type. The use of type becomes essential in this process as it is new to the craft-making landscape. This creates an atmosphere of experimentation and exploration that enables craftspeople to think in new ways. The making of a typeface also promotes literacy amongst craft communities, as it emphasizes the importance of letters and words as a potential source of income. Visual communication students use typecraft as a way to engage with their own cultural heritage through design. Students are encouraged to forgo digital tools and hand construct craft forms as a way to unpack its lexicon, to then repack those forms into letterforms in both Latin and Indic scripts. Ishan Khosla sees this exchange as the start of what is possible in contemporary Indian type design, pedagogy, and craft. Khosla would like to emphasize that this project is unprecedented in that an ancient system of tattoos, and other crafts, has been converted into functional digital display typefaces. These typefaces should not be solely viewed in the same light as other typefaces, but instead, as cultural artifacts that have embedded symbolism for hundreds, if not thousands of years. It is also important to consider the value the process of making the letters has on the craft community—from exposure to design and design thinking to literacy. Design students also benefit from this process as they learn about the tactile nature of craft and how to form it into a letterform that provides great value from a localized context. Presentation by Ishan Khosla followed by Q&A led by moderator Dina Benbrahim. *** Ishan Khosla is a designer with a master’s degree from the School of Visual Arts in New York City. Khosla is the founding partner of the typecraft initiative, which develops typefaces from tribal arts and folk crafts. Khosla has led various talks for Typo Berlin, Semi-Permanent, and Typo Day. His work is published in Typographic Universe, Found Type, and India Contemporary Design, to list a few. Khosla’s exhibitions include “Handcraft For The Digital,” type design from India at Atelier Muji Ginza in Tokyo.

At The DesignIndia Show 2025, themed EMPOWER, we celebrated voices shaping the future of design, culture, and heritage. In his keynote, Ishan Khosla - graphic and type designer, researcher, and founder of The Typecraft Initiative - shared how design can empower indigenous communities by transforming folk and tribal artforms such as embroideries, tattoos, and wall paintings into digital typefaces that carry forward embedded knowledge. Holding an MFA in Design from the School of Visual Arts, NYC, Ishan’s practice has investigated the intersections of craft, cultural heritage, material culture, ecology, caste politics, and the informal economy in the Global South. His work has been exhibited at the London Design Biennial, Atelier Muji Ginza, and is part of collections at SFMOMA, Letterform Archive, Fukuoka Asian Art Museum, and Powerhouse Museum. Through Typecraft, Ishan has continued to expand the possibilities of type design as a tool for cultural preservation, collaboration, and empowerment. At TDS 2025, Ishan shared his journey and showed how typography can be a vessel for culture and identity - rooted in craft yet resonating in the digital age. Register for India’s Best Design Awards 2026: https://ibda.design-india.com/ibda-interested-participants/

Pehchan, the #identity of a #community via their #craft. What does it mean to make a #typeface based on the craft of a #artisanal group. Talk given at Type Drives Communities (Type Directors Club NYC) | May 2021

Ishan Khosla explains the methodology of working with artisans to develop type from their crafts using examples such as Godna tattoos. For background, see the story: https://garlandmag.com/loop/ishan-khosla/

Episode 4. The interview with Ishan Khosla – South Asian visual artist, a practicing designer for over 22 years, a partner of The Typecraft Initiative, and our guest at Typography workshop 2022 Ishan Khosla: https://www.ishankhosla.com PJAIT: youtube.com/@TVPjwstk https://www.instagram.com/polskojaponska/ NeMA: youtube.com/@pjaitnema https://www.instagram.com/pjait_nema/ Made by: Ivan Tsimchishyn, Dmitry Pisarchik 2022 #typography #workshop #PJAIT #NeMA #interview #education #studies #pjaitnema #study #graphicdesign #exhibition #poster #technology #workshopweek #editorial #pjatk #polskojaponska #instaartist #instadesign #creative #study #academy #typo #typography #typecraft #indiatypography

Handmade in India August 23, 2020, Sunday | 05:30 - 07:00 PM IST Artistic and functional, sustainable and sentimental, the range of India’s handicrafts are probably the most diverse not just from the artisan’s point of view but also by their connect to regional and spatial impulses. A glimpse of a few reveals this inherent nature. Special Guest:H.E. Smt. Suchitra Durai, Ambassador of India to Thailand Chair: Prof. Anjula Gurtoo, Professor, IISc (India) – Inspiration for Indian Crafts Historically Panelists: Shri. Ishan Khosla, Founder, Typecraft Initiative (India) – Branding Indian Craft Shri. Archish Mathe, Zishta, Traditional Kitchenware(India) – Science of Indian Cookware Shri. Sudhir Kasliwal, CFO, Gem Palace (India) – Indian Jewellery in Foreign Bazaars #Namaste2020 #Handmade #India

Ishan Khosla: The Politics of Type Design from the Global South Born in Fort Kochi, India in 1976, Ishan Khosla is a Dehradun-based visual artist, designer, educator, and researcher. With a unique blend of coding, digital technology, and traditional visual arts, Ishan crafts powerful narratives that challenge the status quo.The Typecraft Initiative: Ishan's groundbreaking project, The Typecraft Initiative (Trust), launched in 2011-12, redefines design by creating typefaces inspired by tribal art and craft. More than just an artistic endeavor, Typecraft serves as a socio-political platform that amplifies the voices of religious minorities, tribes, subordinate castes, and women. Through this work, Ishan confronts issues of inequity, colonization, patriarchy, and power structures, while also breathing new life into traditional crafts for today’s audiences.