Written by Fazley Fadzil
Malaysia’s graphic design scene is small but growing to be quite a contender on the world stage.
In the spirit of supporting local, wouldn’t it be nice if we could use fonts that are Malaysian made in our products, advertising, and documents, or at least appreciate them?
If you were ever so inclined, look no further, here are 6 popular fonts designed by Malaysians!
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If you’re an iPhone, iPad, or Macbook user, and you frequently use Tamil to communicate, you most likely would have used this typeface before!
Muthu Nedumaran is the Malaysian font engineer responsible for this creation.
Muthu’s company, Murasu Systems Sdn Bhd. is credited with designing Tamil MN and Tamil Sangam MN, and paved the way for the manifestation of other versions such as Devanagari, Bengali, Burmese, and numerous other scripts from Indic and Indochina regions.
As a son to a Tamil writer, Muthu used to accompany his father to printing presses where brochures, invitations, and posters were published.
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He became fascinated by the different building blocks and carved metal pieces in the printing press machines used to create beautiful scripts, although at the time, the term “font” or “typeface” was not yet part of his vocabulary.
Upon graduating in 1985 with a degree in electronic engineering, Muthu decided he wanted to make computers speak Tamil.
He tinkered about with the parts of an MS-DOS computer to discover how font characters were being generated so that he could input Tamil, where there was English.
His curious efforts paid off and today, people across the globe are able to write and display Indic/Indo-Chinese languages on either Apple or Android devices.
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Over the past 3 decades, Muthu has been influential in developing writing systems for Indic languages.
His first product, Murasu Anjal, was an input method program made for the Tamil script made in the 1980s.
Since then, it has made Tamil printing easier and cheaper to produce and transformed the Tamil publishing landscape for a digital future using bitmapped fonts for laser printers and computers.
He explains more about his work and changes in the design of his Tamil fonts in this video, from the Typographic Conference 2021 by the Type Directors Club.
Muthu also has a blog you can read articles on his work here. Tamil Sangam MN is available on all Apple products, while Tamil MN is on the macOS.
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Recently, we’ve seen Grab at our LRT station benches, shopping mall entrances and those YouTube ads with the cute little cars on it.
Notice how the title text on their ads now have lines running through the letters that look like their logo?
In 2019, Grab commissioned hrftype, a foundry based in Kuala Lumpur, to create a new typeface as part of their rebranding project.
The typeface, named Grab Community, was designed by Sueh Li Tan and Hsin Yin Low.
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Last March, the typeface, along with 20 others, received a Certificate of Typographic Excellence from the Type Directors Club; an international organisation specialising in typography and lifting its standards.
The typeface has also been designed for other Southeast Asian scripts, such as Khmer (redesigned by Anagata), Thai (Cadson Demak), and Burmese by Maung Sun.
hrftype is part of Huruf, a collective of designers working to inspire interest and encourage awareness on typography in Malaysia.
If you’re really looking to finding out more about type design from a local perspective, I encourage you to give them a follow!
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To me, the story behind this typeface showcases the importance of design to the world!
A tragic accident involving 6 vehicles illegally racing killed a family of 3.
However, witnesses were unable to identify some of the car number plates, believed to be fitted with custom-designed plates.
Malaysia’s Road Transport Department (JPJ) then decided it was time to create a standardisation for all car license plates, proposing centralised production schemes, inserting microchips, and metal stamping on plates.
Vinod J. Nair, a design lecturer at Taylor’s University, was irked with the proliferation of custom plates with various stylised fonts that made reading car plates harder.
He took it upon himself to propose to JPJ a standardised typeface for all vehicles, focusing on the legibility and readability of moving cars without compromising a distinctive style.
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After 3 years of working on his standardised font proposal, Vinod produced 3 other fonts, namely; MYNO, MYNO Extended, and NOMY.
He then put up a poll on Twitter asking users to choose their preference, letting them select between his designs and a generic typeface dubbed as the “Factory Manufactured Typeface”, or FMT.
The fun fact is that although JPJ has regulations for the display of car number plates in terms of size and font, the majority of the vehicles in Malaysia actually use the FMT.
There is no official name for FMT, and it does not even have a digitised version.
Sadly, the majority in Vinod’s Twitter poll also selected the FMT, leading Vinod to go back to the drawing board.
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He worked on deconstructing the FMT; improving the alphanumerics by introducing features such as ink traps for legibility and readability, and rounded corners to facilitate metal embossing.
He went so far as to design a display format for number plates!
He named the final product “JPJ 1”, a fitting tribute since he intended to propose it to none other than JPJ themselves.
When the issue of standardisation cropped up again, Vinod was ready with his proposal for the JPJ director.
It was well received and was suggested to be formalised into the government system but the matter continues to be under deliberation since 2016.
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Let’s hope that his proposal will be taken seriously, especially when it’s one to benefit both authorities and road users!
If you’re interested to delve deeper, you can Vinod’s own thoughts here.
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Moving on from cars, we have to examine another common typeface frequently seen while travelling along Malaysian highways.
This typeface is a redesign & combination of multiple typefaces used by the United States Federal Highways Administration for their own highway signages.
In the 60s when most developing countries were starting to focus on building roads, the U.S. was the predominant country looked upon for inspiration.
Previously, LLM had directly used USA’s Highway Gothic font before changing to Transport Heavy and CCRige.
Later, LLM decided to make their own typeface by combining the three!
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LLM Normal is a modified version of Transport Heavy and Highway Gothic Series E and is commonly used as title fonts.
LLM Narrow is used for longer text and was modified from Highway Gothic Series B, C, and CCRige.
Observing the differences, the LLM Lettering is conspicuously thicker compared to Transport Heavy and Highway Gothic.
This is likely to assist visibility, especially for Malaysian eyes.
You can download this font from LLM’s website, for free here!
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This is one Malaysian-made typeface that is not quite familiar and has quite a shady background.
LayarBahtera Doomsday is designed by Mohd Razali Mohd Raub, also known as Morabira, from Kota Tinggi, Johor.
He made the typeface for an organisation he was in called, LayarBahtera.
Based on his blog post, he was not satisfied with sticking to certain fonts when it comes to making a logo.
He found that some fonts only appealed to women while others specifically to men.
Some fonts conveyed fun and other fonts were more suited to denote a certain seriousness.
For his organisation logo, he decided to create a font that, in his view, could satisfy both male and female audiences; mixing sharpness and smoothness together to “celebrate the Doomsday Fiesta with disasters here and there”.
Digging further into LayarBahtera, you’ll find that it is kind of a cult with a small following by Mohd Shahjrulazmi.
Their beliefs regarding Doomsday and claims that their leader was a “Mahdi”, the spiritual leader before the apocalypse in Muslim legends, promptly earned them the label of heretics by JAKIM and several other blog websites.
It doesn’t help that the description on LayarBahtera’s MyFonts website includes their intentions to spread the Doomsday message!
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Armageddon theories aside, the LayarBahtera Doomsday font was apparently used in a brand identity that won Bronze at the International Advertising Festival PAPOK in Armenia!
Morabira also has other typefaces for the organisation with similar styles, such as Kiamat Doomsday, Ark Doomsday, and Fire Doomsday.
If those names are not a bother, you can see more of them on his blog, or on the MyFonts website.
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Microsoft users would most likely be familiar with Abadi.
Created by Malaysian Ong Chong Wah for The Monotype Corporation in 1988, the font takes inspiration from the letters used in the Malay language, specifically the use of long words and frequency of me-, men-, mem-, kan, etc.
The font went on to become one of Monotype’s top-selling fonts for a long time due to its strong and contemporary typeface.
According to an email we received from one of our readers, William Harald Wong, Ong has been busy researching the form and characteristics of Jawi and Arabic scripts. In fact, many of the early Arabic typefaces used in the Middle East were actually designed by him through Monotype.
The next time you use a font, try to figure out who the creator is and where they come from. This will serve to enrich your experience with the particular typeface and who knows, might even inspire you to try out font-making yourself too!
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Cover image obtained with permission from hrftype and Vinod Nair. This feature was edited by Ista Kyra and Sukhbir Cheema.
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