“Is it sort of a benign - possibly even helpful - universalism that Google is bringing to the table? Or is it something like technological imperialism?”įonts can be an extremely fun and liberating thing to play around with if you have a wide selection at your disposal, and the right one can make just the right statement at times. To be sure, there was a degree of skepticism when Google and Monotype embarked on this project, in my opinion well summed up in the words of Pakistani-American writer Ali Eteraz ( quoted by NPR in 2014, when the project was already well underway):

The aim here is a big one: regardless of which language you create or consume digital content in, there should be no “unknown” characters that come across as white boxes, which are described as “tofu.” (Noto is a portmanteau of “ No to(fu)”.) And all of it, Google and Monotype believe, would look better if it were visually unified. The fonts are available under an open source OFL (Open Font License), both to use and to be modified with more design tweaks. Google, in partnership with font specialist Monotype, has taken the wraps off the Noto Project, a five-year collaboration between the two to create a typeface that applies to any language that now offers a single font style covering more than 800 languages and 100 writing scripts. But today, it’s the company’s efforts in the world of fonts - perhaps one of the less celebrated, but still central, parts of that ambition - that is having its day in the spotlight. Google’s bid to connect the world with its services is a multi-faceted effort that spans mobile services, search, maps, connectivity, devices and more.

Google noto