Type Around the World – Get to Know Siem Reap, Cambodia

In this recurring feature in our “Fonts Having a Moment” series, we’ll be exploring cities around the world through the dual lenses of culture and typography, guided by our friends at Monotype and some of our partner foundries. Join us on this exciting virtual journey! 

This time, get to know Siem Reap, Cambodia with Sovichet Tep of Anagata Type.

A portrait of Sovichet.

Tell us a bit about yourself and your foundry.
I’m a programmer, font engineer, and self-taught type designer working on the Khmer script. Type design started as a hobby in 2010, and by 2018 it had become my profession. I came to it from full-stack development, which is probably why I ended up drawn to the technical side of type as much as the drawing side.

Anagata Type’s Kantumruy Pro typeface.

I’m the co-founder and type director of Anagata Type, which I run with Angkearith Mao and Both Bou. The studio is based in Phnom Penh, though I live in Siem Reap and work remotely, with the team down there and clients spread around the world. Anagata Design handles strategy, brand identity, and typeface design. We adapted Google Sans and MiSans into Khmer, and we’ve built branded Khmer fonts for companies like Grab, Carlsberg Group, and Peng Huoth Group. Anagata Type is our retail foundry, which began as Romnea Type before we brought it under the studio. Its purpose is straightforward: to raise the quality of typography in Cambodia by putting good Khmer fonts within reach of designers and businesses who can’t commission a custom one.

Anagata Type’s Niradei typeface.

Kantumruy Pro, Krasar, and Niradei came out of that. Underneath all of it is one question we keep returning to, which is how far we can push the modernism of the Khmer script.

Anagata Type’s Krasar typeface.

More recently I’ve moved into font engineering, helping other foundries build their fonts properly and work through the technical problems that come with complex scripts. I also run type design training from time to time, mostly for designers here who want to work seriously with Khmer, and I serve as the South East Asian Scripts specialist for the GRANSHAN competition, where I represent Khmer and advocate for more typographic diversity.

Letter ផ used for fence decoration.

Tell us about your city. What do you love about it? What’s distinctive about it?
Siem Reap is where our culture, our traditions, and our beliefs took shape, back when it was the seat of the Khmer Empire from 802 to 1431 CE. Those roots are still visible today across the province, and not only inside the famous sites.

Banteay Srei, a small temple in Siem Reap with extremely detailed carvings.

Modern Siem Reap has held onto a lot of what it had. There is still green space, still nature, and above all there are the temples, hundreds of them to visit.

The murals of Wat Bo with traditional letterforms in Siem Reap, currently being restored.

We have a saying here: “When life hurts, Siem Reap heals.” I’ve found that to be true in many aspects, because the pace of the place has a way of settling you.

Nature along the Siem Reap River, in front of the École française d’Extrême-Orient (EFEO).

Where would you take someone visiting your city for the first time?
Since Siem Reap is one of the most historic places in the country, I usually take visiting friends to the pagodas and the temples first, to Angkor Wat, Bayon, Ta Prohm, Banteay Srei, and Lolei, where they can find some fascinating calligraphy and stone inscriptions. For a wider view of Khmer art, culture, and history, the Angkor National Museum is the place to start.

Angkor Wat. Photo by Roth Chanvirak on Unsplash.

Angkor Wat, close up. Photo by Siborey Sean on Unsplash.

The city also has a number of craft and workshop centers worth a stop, where you can watch the work being done and pick up textiles, kramas, and other handmade pieces to take home. They make better souvenirs than anything you’ll find in a shop, and you get to see how they’re made.

Muol fonts in Siem Reap shop signs.

The food is just as good a reason to visit. There’s an enormous variety of it here, and most of it tastes good simply because the ingredients arrive fresh from the villages around the city. To name some, Puok district and Preah Dak village are the two particular places we normally go for authentic Khmer food.

What’s a typeface that you think represents the spirit of your city and why?
I believe it’s a bit difficult to find a typeface that could represent the spirit of Siem Reap alone. 

This handwritten sign says “No Littering Here.”

Typeface development in Cambodia, particularly the digital kind, only started around the 1980s, after the worst period in the nation’s history, and for a long time we simply used whatever was available for every kind of work.

An old bilingual shop sign.

However, if you are a type aficionado, visiting Siem Reap would be a chance to immerse yourself in a space where classic and modern typography meet.

Interesting lettering at Bakong pagoda, Siem Reap, Cambodia, circa 1938.

But there is one genre that captures the Cambodian perspective, and that’s the Muol classification. 

Limon R1 and Khmer OS Muol Light typefaces. Image created by Sovichet Tep.

This Siem Reap street sign is typeset in Limon R1.

The most beloved typeface in it was Limon R1 (a legacy font built on ASCII encoding, from before the Khmer Unicode block was initiated), and these days people have shifted to the Unicode version, Khmer OS Muol.

The banner features Khmer OS Muol. The letter “ស” is used in the fence.

The Muol genre does show how attached Cambodians feel to their identity, tradition, and culture, because this type of font is a direct derivation from stone inscriptions.

Stone inscriptions from the late 9th century in Lolei temple in Siem Reap.