Imagine a page where two scripts, English and Devanagari, feature fonts that hug each other, like letters that are in love. Yes, he is her type!

Playing cupid is Shirin Johari, who recently launched The Hinglish Project, an uber-cool English-Hindi font that hopes “to make the country more familiar” to visitors and tourists. Launched by ad agency DDB Mudra where Shirin is associate creative director and supported by Incredible India!, The Hinglish Project helps the reader to understand Hindi phonetics by looking at the corresponding English letter superimposed on it. The cool bit about this project is that you can download the font for free (see instructions in FAQs section), and if you’re really, really nice to Shirin, maybe even use it in a commercial endeavour (email her at This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it ).

A For Antar

But while the typeface is pitched at tourists trying to read the city, it’s equally appealing to stay-at-homes. “Indians are warming up to it as well. They like the play between the two letters,” Shirin  tells us on a call from Amsterdam, while on her way to Cannes, where this project is one of Mudra's entries in the design category.

The site also has a bunch of fun additions like an interactive component that lets you type in random words, digital postcards that can be emailed to friends and a range of products like tees and flip books that can be won if you're lucky.

By putting The Hinglish Project out there , Shirin and her support crew (see credits here) hope to see the font travel not just within India, but internationally as well. “Maybe see it on a bus in Mumbai, on signage in another country. On text messages between people.”

It’s like she put it at the beginning of the conversation, “A font that’s trying to be friends with you.”

Getting there: Visit www.thehinglishproject.com, email   This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it , font available for free download.