Chapakala

Chapakala (ଛାପାକଳ) (“printing press” in Odia) is an open-source typeface family that revives the letterpress-era typefaces used for printing in the Odia (formerly Oriya) script. Each subproject focuses on a distinct historical period of Odia type design.

The first release, Chapakala19, revives the 19th-century workhorse used in Odia publications at the Orissa Mission Press. Future subfolders (e.g., 20/) will expand this family with other revivals.

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Projects

• Chapakala19 — Revival of the 19th-century typeface designed by Manohar Karmakar for the Orissa Mission Press (est. 1838 by Rev. Charles Lacey).

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Goals

• Study the typographic history of the Odia script and digitally revive typefaces.
• Design typefaces to promote historical text reproduction, modern everyday typesetting, and OCR training.

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Roadmap

• 2025 (v1): Release Chapakala19 Regular (OFL v.1.1).
• 2026 (v2): Expand with additional weights/styles from Odia letterpress.

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Contributing

We welcome contributions in design, testing, and documentation.

• Report issues or suggestions via GitHub Issues.
• Submit pull requests for design refinements or feature updates.

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License

• Fonts: SIL Open Font License (OFL) v.1.1
• Source files and documentation: MPL and CC BY-SA.

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Credits

• Lead design for Chapakala19: Subhashish Panigrahi
• Advisors for Chapakala19: Yesha Goshar (type design), Dr. Nasim Ali (font engineering and overall direction) and Liang Hai (font engineering)

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Installation

Clone or download this repository.

For Desktop (system-wide)

1. Download the .ttf or .otf file from the fonts/ folder of the subproject (e.g., 19/fonts/).
2. Install on your OS (double-click → Install).

For Web

@font-face {
  font-family: 'Chapakala19';
  src: url('19/fonts/Chapakala19-Regular.ttf') format('truetype');
}