Serif Fonts

RIT Rachana, the most stable version

A stable version of Rachana font, namely, RIT Rachana (with all the variants like regular, italic, bold and bold italic) was also released along with Ezhuthu. The download links are given alongside. The rationale of the need for RIT Rachana is also explained here.

The entire glyph lists of this comprehensive text font are available here:

  1. RIT Rachana Regular
  2. RIT Rachana Italic
  3. RIT Rachana Bold
  4. RIT Rachana BoldItalic
  5. Detailed glyph list of all the variants in PDF format

RIT Panmana—A body text font

A new font, RIT Panmana, a body text font in serif category for Malayalam, was released on the new year day of 2021. This is in memory of Prof. Panmana Ramachandran Nair who steadfastly stood for the cause of Rachana Akshara Vedi.

The entire glyph list of this font is available here:

  1. RIT Panmana Regular
  2. Detailed glyph list in PDF format

Sans-Serif Fonts

RIT Meera New—traditional orthography opentype Unicode font for Malayalam

Meera New is a complete redesign of Meera font which was distributed since 2008. Major modification done is reducing width of characters, i.e., condensing, thus answering a long time criticism on original Meera that it took more space compared to Rachana. Vertical conjuncts are designed with a new proportion between above and below characters for better leading and inking. RIT Meera New is a sans serif font following the limited character set of Malayalam traditional orthography. It is suitable for short texts like boxed texts, blurbs and section headings.

The entire glyph list of this font is available here:

  1. RIT MeeraNew Regular
  2. Detailed glyph list in PDF format

RIT TNJoy—traditional orthography Malayalam Unicode font

RIT TN Joy is a traditional orthography font for Malayalam script designed by KH Hussain and PK Ashok Kumar and developed by Rachana Institute of Typography. This font is named after and dedicated to the activist RIT TN Joy.

The entire glyph list of this font is available here:

  1. RIT TN Joy Regular
  2. RIT TN Joy Bold
  3. RIT TN Joy ExtraBold
  4. Detailed glyph list in PDF format

Display Fonts

RIT Chingam

RIT Chingam is a display style font for Malayalam traditional script designed by renowned calligrapher Narayana Bhattathiri and developed by Rachana Institute of Typography in the year 2024.

It comes with a regular variant, embellished with stylistic alternates for a number of characters. The default shapes of a small number of characters are wider in stark contrast with the shape of other characters designed as narrow width. The font contains alternate shapes for these characters more in line with the general narrow width characteristic.

The invocation of alternate style set of characters in documents for different typesetting systems like TEX, Scribus, InDesign, etc., have been provided in detail at: this page.

The entire glyph list of this font is available here:

  1. RIT Chingam
  2. Detailed glyph list in PDF format

RIT Karuna

RIT Karuna is a display style font for Malayalam traditional script designed by renowned calligrapher Narayana Bhattathiri and developed by Rachana Institute of Typography.

Design

CN Karunakaran (1940–2013) was an acclaimed painter, illustrator and art director from Kerala. As a homage to his style of hand writing and designs; another well known calligrapher, Narayana Bhattathiri, designed this display typeface, which is digitized including precise complex-script OTL shaping rules. This Malayalam font has a unique and novel style, evoking classic affinity and fluidity. A very special treatment is applied in the design philosophy to limit ascenders within the x-height of character. It resulted in an ingenious design where the shape of base character in stacked conjuncts is subtly altered to meet this constraint; for instance see the glyphs യ & യ്ക്ക; ക്ഷ & ക്ഷ്ണ , etc. Karuna supports traditional Malayalam orthography with limited character set, suitable for display/tile/poster/banner style.

The entire glyph list of this font is available here:

  1. RIT Karuna Bold
  2. Detailed glyph list in PDF format

RIT Keraleeyam

It was in 2005 Keraleeyam font was designed for the environmental magazine ‘Keraleeyam’ under the editorship Robin published from Thrissur. Initially it was designed for ASCII Rachana for typesetting the magazine using PageMaker. It was visually modelled after the then popular bold ASCII fonts Leela and Indulekha. Its geometry follows a vertical oval shape. Keraleeyam was made Unicode in 2015. Keraleeyam is a thick san-serif display style font and is condensed. It is widely used for designing book covers and titles. Conjucts, especially vertical conjuncts are reworked for better balance in between above and below characters.

The entire glyph list of this font is available here:

  1. RIT Keraleeyam Regular
  2. RIT Keraleeyam Italic
  3. Detailed glyph list in PDF format

RIT Sundar

RIT Sundar a traditional orthography display font for Malayalam script developed by Rachana Institute of Typography with design consultation by Narayana Bhattathiri.

This font is created, named and released in memory of Sundar (Sundar Ramanatha Iyer; April 23, 1953 – November 12, 2016), a staunch proponent of open fonts and open access publishing.

The entire glyph list of this font is available here:

  1. RIT Sundar
  2. Detailed glyph list in PDF format

RIT Uroob

Malayalam characters are basically rounded, but RIT Uroob is an experiment in opposite geometry—making them rectangular. The Roman font, ‘Impact’, is taken as a model. Its name is derived from the author Uroob (P.C. Kuttykrishnan) of the famous Malayalam novel Ummachu published in 1954. Designing started in 2014 when the novel commemorated its 60th year of publishing and the font is dedicated to the fond memory of the author. It is a condensed thick font and is used for titles and book covers.

The entire glyph list of this font is available here:

  1. RIT Uroob
  2. Detailed glyph list in PDF format

Handwriting Fonts

RIT Ezhuthu

A new font, RIT Ezhuthu, that simulates the Malayalam handwriting, drawn by the famed calligrapher, Narayana Bhattathiri was released on November 1, 2020 which incidentally falls on the date of creation of the State of Kerala. The shapes are enchanting and has the mark of the artistic talents of its creator.

The entire glyph list of this font is available here:

  1. RIT Ezhuthu Regular
  2. Detailed glyph list in PDF format

RIT Kutty

RIT Kutty is a handwriting style font for Malayalam traditional script designed by Artist Kutty Kodungallur (Ibrahimkutty, T.K.) and developed by Rachana Institute of Typography.

RIT Kutty is calligraphed by artist Kutty Kodungallur. RIT Kutty is the second calligraphic font after RIT Ezhuthu but its work started in 2019 before Ezhuthu. It is bold in nature, thicker than Ezhuthu and can be best used for posters. Characters were first drawn using ink and paper instead of using graphical calligraphic pen.

The entire glyph list of this font is available here:

  1. RIT Kutty Bold
  2. Detailed glyph list in PDF format