Page 221 - Art and Crafts of Bangladesh

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people combine handwriting or calligraphy with typography. We see this combination
in book covers, posters, certificates, illustration of magazines and many other areas.
However, the person who has really given thought to Bengali typography, whose
talent and merit has lead to the development of typography is Satyajit Ray. He has
experimented with the different possibilities of Bengali typography. We can see the
reflections and implementations of his ideas regarding typography in many book
covers, title design of films, posters, or in booklets. However, before this, Bengali
alphabets achieved a special dimension through Rabindrabath Tagore. Rabindranath’s
disciple Benode Behari also worked on Bengali typography.
When the printing industry began in Bangladesh, the ‘type’s were imported from
Kolkata. It continued before the partition and even after that. The direct result of the
movement of 1952 is the Bangla Academy. It has kept on experimenting in order to
improve Bengali typography. Bangla Academy has collected different specimens from
different artists but they have not been published yet.
Qayyum Chowdhury is foremost among those artists who showed their excellence in
creating different types of hand-written calligraphic typography in Bangladesh. There
were also other artists who invented their own typography i.e., Hashem Khan, Rafiqun
Nabi, Kazi Hasan Habib, Golam Sarwar, Afzal Hossain, Anwar Faruk, Masuk Helal,
Maksudur Rahman, Dhrubo Esh etc. Nowadays, many advertising firms are making
noteworthy contributions in terms of developing new calligraphic typography. The use
of artistic typography has increased in everything that has the slightest connection
with the printing media in Bangladesh, for example- from invitation cards to posters,
from book covers to visiting cards, hoardings, and billboards—the touch of
calligraphic typography is everywhere. Technological improvement is one of the main
reasons behind the development of typography in Bangladesh in the last few
decades. Any kind of ‘type’ can be made and used for printing purposes very quickly
just because of this technological development. This was quite impossible at the
beginning of the printing industry.
5. Monogram, Logo
The briefest identity of any institution is focused in the monogram. A successful
monogram easily shows the name, characteristics, specialty etc. of that institution.
Therefore, the monogram is considered very important and necessary for an
fig. 4.22 Logo of
Calcutta School Book organization in the modern era.
Society Printmakers as well as other artists had a custom of designing and using an abridged
form of their name at the corner of the picture prior to the introduction
of the printing press. It is assumed that the monogram originated from
this tradition. Yet again, many think that monograms of different
organizations were introduced to avoid piracy.
Before independence of Bangladesh, there was a common practice to
design monograms by organizing some words inside a circle or a
triangle or a square (fig. 4.22). After independence, notable changes