Fonts for Good and Flamboyant Indian Alphabet References

Projects in India and Barcelona support sign painters and the homeless through input into font designs.

Colourful font based on Indian sign painting style.
Umesh from India's HandPaintedType initiative.

Here are two stories of how the transition from hand-made letters to fonts have supported positive social ends. Homeless Fonts from Barcelona and HandPaintedType from India are both inspiring tales from the intersection of the analogue and digital realms…

Homeless Fonts is a collaboration between the Arrels Foundation, who work with the homeless of Barcelona, and advertising agency The Cyranos McCann. Inspired by the ubiquitous writing on pieces of cardboard from Barcelona’s homeless, a series of 10 fonts were developed and made available for sale. Each font is named after the homeless person whose handwriting it originates from, and the money raised goes to fund the work of the Arrels Foundation. They can be viewed and purchased from homelessfonts.org.