Thai typography

Thai typography concerns the representation of the Thai script in print and on displays, and dates to the earliest printed Thai text in 1819. The printing press was introduced by Western missionaries during the mid-nineteenth century, and the printed word became an increasingly popular medium, spreading modern knowledge and aiding reform as the country modernized. The printing of textbooks for a new education system and newspapers and magazines for a burgeoning press in the early twentieth century spurred innovation in typography and type design, and various styles of Thai typefaces were developed through the ages as metal type gave way to newer technologies. Modern media is now served by digital typography, and despite early obstacles including lack of copyright protection, the market now sees contributions by several type designers and digital type foundries.

The printed Thai script has characters in the line of text, as well as combining characters that appear above or below them. One of the main distinguishing features among typefaces is the head of characters, also referred to as the terminal loop. While these loops are a major element of conventional handwritten Thai and traditional typefaces, the loopless style, which resembles sans-serif Latin characters and is also referred to as Roman-like, was introduced in the 1970s and has become highly popular. It is widely used in advertising and as display typefaces, though its use as body-text font has been controversial. Classification systems of Thai typefaces—primarily based on the terminal loop—have been proposed, as has terminology for type anatomy, though they remain under development as the field continues to progress.

Prior to the introduction of printing, Thai script had evolved along a calligraphic tradition, with most written records in the form of folding-book manuscripts known as samut khoi. Records mentioning printing first appear during the reign of King Narai (1656–1688) of the Ayutthaya Kingdom, though the first documented printing of the Thai language did not occur until 1788, in the early Rattanakosin period, when the French Catholic missionary Arnaud-Antoine Garnault had a catechism and a primer printed in Pondicherry in French India. The texts, printed in romanized Thai, were distributed in Siam, and Garnault later set up a printing press in Bangkok.

The printing of Thai script was pioneered by Protestant missionaries. In 1819, Ann Hasseltine Judson, an American Baptist missionary based in Burma, translated the Gospel of Matthew, as well as a catechism and a tract, into Thai. She had learned the language from settled Thai war captives who had been relocated following the fall of Ayutthaya in 1767. The catechism was printed at the Serampore Mission Press in Danish-controlled Serampore, on the outskirts of Calcutta, at the end of the year. It is the earliest known printing of the Thai script, though no remaining copies have been found. The type was probably cast by mission printer George H. Hough, who had worked with the Judsons in Burma. The same font may have later been used in 1828 to print A Grammar of the Thai or Siamese Language by East India Company Captain James Low. The book was printed at the Baptist Mission Press in Calcutta, an offshoot of the Serampore mission, and is the oldest known extant printed material in the Thai script.

In 1823, a set of the font was purchased by Samuel Milton for the London Missionary Society (LMS)'s printing operations in Singapore. The LMS press did not see much Thai output until the early 1830s, when Protestant missionaries began taking up residence in Bangkok. Karl Gützlaff's translation of the Gospel of Luke was printed in 1834, and is the earliest surviving printing of the Bible in the Thai script. The type used is clearly different from that of Low's grammar, and may have been a newer font cast later.

Thai-script printing reached Siam when the American missionary doctor Dan Beach Bradley arrived in Bangkok in 1835, bringing with him from the Singapore printing operation (which had been acquired by the American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions (ABCFM) the year before) an old printing press, together with a set of Thai type. Bradley, working with a few other missionaries, successfully operated the press the following year. They were soon joined by a printer from the Baptist Board for Foreign Missions, who brought new printing equipment, and thus were able to start producing religious material for distribution. The ABCFM and Baptist ministries later established separate printing houses, but initially, they relied on sharing the original set of type brought from Singapore. The missionaries initially ordered new type from Singapore and Penang, but they found the quality unsatisfactory. They finally succeeded in casting their own type in 1841.

Although the missionaries saw limited success in proselytizing, their introduction of printing had far-reaching effects, and Bradley in particular became well known as a printer and produced many influential secular works. In 1839, the government of King Rama III hired the ABCFM press to produce the country's first printed official document: 9,000 copies of a royal edict prohibiting the use or sale of opium. Bradley authored and printed several medical treatises, launched the first Thai-language newspaper—the Bangkok Recorder—in 1844, and published several books, including Nirat London—the first Thai work for which copyright fees were paid—in 1861. His press gained the attention of elite Thais, especially Prince Mongkut (who was then ordained as a monk and would later become King Rama IV), who set up his own printing press at Wat Bowonniwet, cast his own Thai type, and created a new script, known as Ariyaka, to print the Pali language used for Buddhist texts. When he became king in 1851, Mongkut established a royal press in the Grand Palace, which printed official publications including the newly established Royal Gazette.

The earliest typefaces used by these printing establishments were based on the handwriting style of the period, and accordingly featured mostly angular shapes in a single thickness, and were slanted throughout. As Bradley refined his craft, he shifted to upright types with outlines in the shape of vertical rectangles (as seen used in the Bangkok Recorder), and later, with Nirat London, introduced rounded curves. His work would greatly influence later printers.