Tiro Tamil has its origins in a typeface designed for the Murty Classical Library of India book series, so is especially suited to traditional literary publishing but also made with the needs of today’s multiple print and screen media in mind. The design takes inspiration from Tamil metal types developed in Madras (Chennai) in the 19th and early 20th Century, which were influenced by both traditional palm leaf manuscripts and contemporary writing. The stroke modulation makes for a dynamic design for modern typography, while traditional forms of ligatures are accessible via OpenType Layout features. For the Open Font License release, Tiro Tamil has been extended to support additional characters, and features a new italic companion suitable for traditional slanted Tamil typography. Each font also includes a Latin subset including diacritics for transcription of Indian languages.

Tiro Tamil was designed by Fernando Mello and Fiona Ross. The italic was adapted by Kaja Słojewska.

To contribute, see github.com/TiroTypeworks/Indigo.

To learn more, read Modern Tiro Indic collection for classical South Asian texts.