Articles · Ipak

> Articles on how the Ipak fonts are made.

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Articles

# Articles on how Ipak is made

History, letterforms, the working font and checks. Articles are grouped by the stages of the process; each stage is summed up on the process map.

## [Stage 1] · The street and the script

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![](https://ipak.xronocode.com/images/p/four-scripts/06a-yanalif-poster-1933.jpg)

### Four scripts in a hundred years

In a single century the Uzbek language replaced Arabic script with Latin, Latin with Cyrillic, and Cyrillic with Latin again — and in 2026 the Latin alphabet is changing once more.

][

![](https://ipak.xronocode.com/images/p/okina-law-unicode/okina-tutuq-davlat.png)

### The ʻ sign: what the law says and what Unicode says

The law says that the ʻ sign exists in the alphabet and what it is for, but not what it looks like; Unicode suggests the “6” shape, and the final choice belongs to the font designer.

][

![](https://ipak.xronocode.com/images/p/tashkent-street/04-samarkand-railway-station.jpg)

### What hangs on the streets of Tashkent

We took apart 17 buildings and signs — airports, railway stations, ministries, a bazaar, the metro — and almost everywhere saw the same thing: a random font placed on top of the architecture.

][

![](https://ipak.xronocode.com/images/p/metro-lettering/02-kosmonavtlar-platform-close.jpg)

### The lettering of the Tashkent metro

There is no single “metro font” in Tashkent: the Soviet stations are lettered in three different styles, three more were added after 1991, and none of them has the Uzbek letters Ў, Қ, Ғ, Ҳ.

]

## [Stage 2] · Form out of craft

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![](https://ipak.xronocode.com/images/p/bannai-ganch-kalam/01-bannai-gur-e-amir.jpg)

### Bannai, ganch, kalam: where the form comes from

Three old crafts — brickwork, plaster carving, and writing with a reed pen — and how an Ipak accent font grew out of each: the grid of the brickwork, the carver's chamfer, the angle of the pen.

]

## [Stage 3] · Accent fonts

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![](https://ipak.xronocode.com/images/p/from-code-to-font/four-fonts.png)

### From code to font

The Ipak accent fonts are built by programs: bricks in a running bond, the carver's chamfer and light, wedge serifs, the trace of a broad pen. How each rule turns into letters, and how a font file is assembled from them.

]

## [Stage 4] · The workhorse font

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![](https://ipak.xronocode.com/images/p/open-base/mockup-davlat-uz.png)

### Why not from scratch

The workhorse font Ipak Davlat grew out of the open Overpass: how we chose the base and what we had to build on top of it for Uzbek.

][

![](https://ipak.xronocode.com/images/p/mark-band/kern-before-after.png)

### The mark band: aligning Oʻ and Gʻ

Why the word GʻALLA developed a hole, and how we taught the font to measure the gap only where the sign stands.

][

![](https://ipak.xronocode.com/images/p/typed-quotes/typed-vs-result.png)

### o' → oʻ: a substitution that knows Uzbek

People type Uzbek with an ordinary apostrophe. Ipak Davlat shows the correct signs by itself — and leaves the English King's alone.

][

![](https://ipak.xronocode.com/images/p/signs-at-distance/mockup-davlat-wayfinding.png)

### A sign read from a distance

I and l, O and 0, the middle dot, and arrows: the small things that decide whether a plate can be read from the other end of the hall.

]

## [Stage 5] · Checking

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![](https://ipak.xronocode.com/images/p/eight-rounds/g-okina-gap.png)

### How a font is checked

What is checked in the workhorse font Ipak Davlat before release, and why: automatic checks, four directions of checking, a substitution test on real words, and measurement instead of judging by eye.

]

## [Stage 6] · The library and the alphabet change

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![](https://ipak.xronocode.com/images/p/alphabet-changes/davlat-only-changed-letters.png)

### The alphabet changes — the sign stays

Every Ipak font already has the 1995 Latin alphabet, the Ö Ğ Ş Ç letters of the 2026 law, and Cyrillic. When the alphabet changes, only the changed letters will need to be reset.

]

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