Typophile

The Black Javanese Letters

Adien Gunarta

Hi folks,

I submitted my poster to a Typoday competition, India. But seemingly not to be announced as finalist. Here i would like to share the type design (not the whole poster), to all of you. So i would like to get the commentary.

I inspired by a very old poster to celebrate Wilhelmina Queen in Dutch Colonial era in Java. One best thing Dutch people do that time is they conserved our indigenous writing system. Fuse it with European style, ie Blackletter. So i do that again in the modern days. I hope you like it, and comment it.

P.S:
The phrase "měmayu båwånå" is taken from famous Javanese proverb "měmayu hayuning båwånå" which means "to make the beauty of universe more beautiful"

Hrant H Papazian

Interesting!

So this writing system is no longer in use?

hhp

Adien Gunarta

Thanks @hrant

it's very limited in use. We are officially use Latin. I'm one of minority who help to recovering this writing system.

Hrant H Papazian

Good luck! We need such efforts.

hhp

Martin Silvertant

Very interesting.

We need such efforts.

Why? I don't think I would use the word "need" here.

Hrant H Papazian

Well, reviving dormant writing systems is needed more than reviving typestyles.

hhp

Martin Silvertant

How would you argue that?

Hrant H Papazian

It can open a world of stories, and stories of shapes.

hhp

Riccardo Sartori

Culture is one field in which preservation is a basic principle.
Since a writing system, just as a language, is a living thing, a meaningful preservation would entail using it.

Martin Silvertant

Since a writing system, just as a language, is a living thing, a meaningful preservation would entail using it.

That's what I would think. Its relevance is predominantly dictated by its prevalence and use, whereas Hrant seems to imply we have a need for it regardless of prevalence and use.

Hrant H Papazian

A writing system doesn't have to be currently used to be educational. Also, Hebrew was dormant for a long time.

hhp

Riccardo Sartori

Its relevance is predominantly dictated by its prevalence and use

I would beg to differ. For oh so many reasons!

Martin Silvertant

A writing system doesn't have to be currently used to be educational.

I didn't say it isn't educational. I question its objective relevance.

I would beg to differ. For oh so many reasons!

Could you name a few?

Riccardo Sartori

Could you name a few?

Because culture thrive in diversity.
The value of a cultural artefact couldn’t be measured on “prevalence”.
As I already said, preservation is the most important thing: without it there’s no sense of history. And, to clarify my first post, I meant the term “using” in a broad sense: the poster submitted by Gunarta is a way to keep an old writing system alive even if it’s not generally used.

Martin Silvertant

I see its historic value, but when someone says we need (as opposed to want) to recover old writing systems no one uses anymore I question that. I must clarify though that I make a distinction between understanding a writing system and using it. I can see the relevance of understanding a writing system and mining the information within it, but I don't see how we need to revive such systems. Culture thrives on diversity, but there are also reasons why certain writing systems are abandoned. In that regard its relevance is predominantly dictated by its prevalence.

Martin Silvertant

And for the record, I do praise these kind of efforts. I only question how large the group is that benefits from it. I suppose you can't necessarily foresee that, as a writing system just might get in use again. Probably not a blackletter fusion though. But it looks cool in any case. I would love to see longer texts set in this. It might just convince me.

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