Kalapi Gajjar-Bordawekar

Kalapi Gajjar-Bordawekar is a typeface designer and font engineer. His primary interest lies in developing original typeface designs for emerging typographic contexts in the Indian sub-continent along with historical and technological research. He's a graduate of the Master of Arts in Typeface Design programme from the University of Reading, UK. After graduating from Reading, Kalapi worked at the London studio of Dalton Maag Ltd., an international typeface design studio, as a font engineer and designer. In 2016, he joined forces with friend and fellow Reading graduate Gunnar Vilhjálmsson to set-up Universal Thirst, a design practise specialising in developing typefaces for writing systems of the Indian sub-continent. Since its inception, Universal Thirst has taken on bespoke projects for Google, The Gourmand, Frieze Art Fair, DesignMarch, Monotype, and Falcon Enamelware. Since 2020, Kalapi has been a curator and host of TypeLab, a 72-hour online conference which runs parallel and is a part of the Typographics festival organised annually by the Cooper Union. Kalapi lives and works in Bangalore, India.