Keralan Typography

If you ever want to simulate being on an alien planet, the closest thing you can do is go to a place with a language you don't understand, as long as the language doesn't use the roman alphabet. Those languages make you feel tremendously more foreign, no matter how similar you actually are to the local culture. Take Poland--I couldn't read or understand any of the writing, but it felt less foreign to me than Kerala. At least I could read Polish (while butchering words with my "You speak Polish like a Russian" accent), even if I didn't understand what it meant. But everytime I look at Malayalam, I don't even know where to begin.

While driving around Cochin, a lively city in this otherwise relaxed state, we stopped inches away from a bus at a red light. When I looked over at the bus, I noticed something peculiar. Brushstrokes. The labels and numbers on this bus were hand painted.

I can see the brushstrokes when I'm inches away from them. Stop signs, speed limit signs, license plate numbers on autos and buses... they're all painted by hand! I hadn't been this excited about finding out that something is actually painted since I was in Rome. They were painted precisely and neatly, and I only noticed the subtle differences between identical signs when I was looking for them.

Look at the impeccable Arial on this bus:

And this, the seal of the state of Kerala. Is that Impact? I can't tell:

The tricky thing about painting things, I imagine, comes when you're advertising. Logos and brands must stay precise and identical, but I don't think Vodafone will be disappointed at these:

Because the actual logo of Vodafone looks like this: