Untitled Case

One typeface, 17 languages, four months

In late 2017, Polish pharmaceutical company Polpharma engaged Fontfabric to expand language support for Panton Bold—their existing corporate typeface—to cover 17 languages across markets including Central Asia, the Middle East, and Southeast Asia. Fontfabric structured the project in prioritized sprints, beginning with extended Latin and Cyrillic scripts before tackling more complex writing systems. Five scripts—Lao, Armenian, Arabic, Georgian, and Vietnamese—required consultation with native-script specialists and produced script-specific technical solutions, including ligature systems, separate font files, and adjusted vertical metrics.

Set in Panton

Insights

The project was divided into separate font files per script group to ensure flawless performance given the technical limitations of each writing system.
Vietnamese diacritics stacked on existing marks required redesigning the typeface's global vertical metrics, leading to an independently designed Panton Vietnamese.
Armenian required custom ligatures and contextual ligatures to prevent descender overlaps and gaps, given that non-typographers would use the typeface across varied software.
Lao character designs were posted to Facebook community groups for feedback from native non-experts, informing legibility decisions such as retaining loops in letterforms.