Bree Devanagari — a Devanagari typeface with an amiable and dynamic voice

The newest member of TypeTogether’s popular multiscript Bree family, Bree Devanagari is a seven-weight powerhouse of legibility, warmth and charm. The design builds on the foundation of narrow, even horizontal proportions and gestural, handwriting-inspired shapes to create letterforms that are friendly and easygoing. Bree Devanagari presents a fresh, genial typographic voice that doesn’t rely on design naïveté to communicate amiability. I designed this typeface family between 2022–25 with assistance from Shaily Patel, Taresh Vohra and Gunjan Panchal.

Even though the multiscript family offered an adaptable recipe for the Devanagari design, every script’s geometry and grammar poses unique design challenges. Devanagari letterforms had to be expertly manipulated so they would shine in the extrabold weight despite their slender widths and hefty strokes. The typeface also features many closed shapes, such as the ikar and iikar matras, which are fashioned as a nod to the recognisable penmanship evoked in the Latin lowercase g, k, y and z: two scripts written by the same hand. Five base consonants, and over one hundred and fifty of their derivative forms — from half letters to conjuncts — also come in two alternates that can transform Bree Devanagari from spirited to restrained in both languages.