New Thai Type: Bridging Tradition and Modernity
Typotheque has spent over 25 years developing culturally respectful fonts for various world languages, and in eight years ago began a meticulous study of Thai typography, focusing reading performance and cultural perception. Collaborating with local experts and designers, Typotheque created a comprehensive collection of 50 Thai font families, contributing to Thailand’s visual culture through extensive research and thoughtful design.
In 2017, we began planning our work with the Thai script, taking a slow, deliberate approach and engaging in conversations with native designers, studying the script’s history, and analysing its unique features. While many foundries focus on adding language support to existing fonts, this often results in a single Thai design that prioritises correctness but lacks a distinct identity. The reality is that there is no singular ‘correct’ way to design fonts—each design has different purpose and deserves a nuanced and culturally attuned approach. Recognizing Thailand’s rich typographic traditions, we set out to create a comprehensive collection of fonts, rather than a single compromise-driven design, to contribute meaningfully to the country’s evolving visual culture.
We wanted to understand how font choices affect readability, cultural perception, and subjective associations across different user groups. To answer this, we had to conduct a large scale research.
Thai typography, in particular, has undergone significant transformations — not only due to changes in reproduction technologies but also in the evolving visual identity of the script. One prominent example is the shift to simplified Thai letterforms, known as loopless Thai, increasingly adopted in signage, advertising and contemporary print media. The looped Thai, on the other hand, dominates traditional publishing and is prevalent in education and official contexts. We sought to understand how these typographic changes, especially the differences between looped and loopless styles, impact users across different age groups. To do so, we conducted a comprehensive study at Chulalongkorn University in Bangkok that explored how font choices affect both reading and the subjective perception and cultural associations of text. The findings from this research have informed our design choices for specific projects and guided us in determining what kinds of Thai fonts we would develop in the future.
To study the history of the script, we were fortunate to collaborate with Pracha Suveeranont, a distinguished designer, educator and author, whose insightful essay on the history of Thai typography provided a better understanding of the script’s evolution. To read the Thai language version go here. Additionally, we worked closely with local type designers to develop a comprehensive collection of 50 Thai font families. (Zed Thai is coming later this year).
This new collection of Thai fonts celebrates Thailand’s rich typographic heritage, offering meticulously researched and culturally attuned typefaces that meet the needs of contemporary visual culture.
We published a book with the findings of our cognitive lab-based research, offering a detailed exploration of how typography influences readability, perception, and cultural identity. The book includes an in-depth essay on the history of Thai typography, providing valuable insights into its evolution and the interplay between traditional and modern styles. Additionally, it showcases the extensive collection of fonts we developed over eight years.
Bringing this collection of fonts to life has been a massive endeavour, and one informed by extensive research. Many of these fonts were recognised internationally, November, with its Thai version won the Red Dot: Best of the Best award for 2023, Greta Sans Thai was recognised by Granshan in 2019, and Ping with its Thai version won Gold European Design Award in 2019. We hope this work will make a meaningful contribution to Thailand’s rapidly evolving visual culture.