Before joining KITLV as a doctoral researcher, Ariq’s work involved examining letterforms from manuscripts, inscriptions, and printed materials, and transforming them into digital fonts. Ariq Syauqi is an Indonesian type designer/researcher specialising in multiscript typography, especially underrepresented ones.

Fascinated by letterforms, he began his academic pathway at the Faculty of Humanities, Universitas Indonesia, where he examined fonts from a sociolinguistic perspective. He then formally trained as a type designer and earned an MA in Typeface Design from the University of Reading. During his time in the UK, he explored the development of multiscript fonts and created Kala, a typeface family supporting Latin, Balinese, and Arabic scripts.

He later joined the Missing Scripts project at the Atelier National de Recherche Typographique, France, as a post-master researcher. His study focuses on the typographic representation of Southern Sumatran scripts (Lampung, Ulu, and Kerinci), which are not yet encoded in Unicode. Whilst at ANRT, he worked closely with the Script Encoding Initiative, University of California Berkeley, as a fieldwork fellow (2024) and as an intern (2025).

At KITLV, he investigates the writing traditions in the Indonesian archipelago through different perspectives within the framework of time: past, present, and future. Focusing on users as a central part, the project examines the connection between people, languages, and scripts.

Along with his PhD work in The Netherlands, Ariq continues to design typefaces and is active in the community. He independently releases original fonts through Marsnev & Co. and collaborates with leading designers as a freelancer.

Selected talks and public appearance

Syauqi, Ariq, “Designing beyond unicode: The case of Southern Sumatran scripts”, presented at ATypI conference 2025, Copenhagen, Denmark, 23 April 23 2025.

Syauqi, Ariq, “Lampung script and the people: Reflection from my SEI fieldwork in Sumatra”, Script Encoding Initiative, 2025.

Syauqi, Ariq, “Southern Sumatran scripts: The transformation from 14th century to present”, presented at the Grapholinguistics in the 21th Century, Venice, Italy, 23 October 2024.  

Syauqi, Ariq, “Challenges and opportunities of adapting minority scripts into digital platform”, presented at the Face/Interface Conference, Stanford University, California, 1 December 2023.