National Fonts



The National Fonts (ฟอนต์แห่งชาติ; ) are 2 sets of free and open-source computer fonts for the Thai script sponsored by the Thai government. In 2001, the first set of fonts was released by NECTEC. The 3 Thai typefaces in the set; Kinnari, Garuda and Norasi; were intended to be public alternatives to the widely used commercial typefaces. Later on, Thai Linux Working Group (TLWG) released these 3 typefaces alongside 10 others. In 2006, a computer font competition was held. 13 of these typefaces won the competition and later got adopted by the Government of Thailand as public and official fonts. Later in 2021, another typeface, Chulabhorn Likhit were selected as the 14th typeface in the set. Thus, the set has gained the nickname of fourteen National Fonts. The typefaces and all of their subsequently developed versions are released by the Software Industry Promotion Agency (Public Organisation), or SIPA, together with the Department of Intellectual Property through f0nt.com. Hence another nickname for the set, SIPA fonts (ฟอนต์ซิป้า). In 2018, 13 of these typefaces from this set has been revised by a local font foundry Cadson Demak (คัดสรร ดีมาก), along with Google Fonts.

Typefaces by NECTEC and Thai Linux Working Group
In 2001, The first "National Fonts" set was released by NECTEC. It contains three Thai typefaces: Kinnari, Garuda and Norasi. These typefaces were intended to be public alternatives to the widely used, yet licence-restricted, commercial typefaces that came bundled with major operating systems and applications. Later on, Thai Linux Working Group (TLWG) released these 3 typefaces alongside 10 others. Aside from Waree, the other 12 typefaces were released under GPL.

2006 competition
On 2 August 2006, Abhisit Vejjajiva's Council of Ministers organised a competition to replace all existing fonts the Thai Government had bought from the private sector, including Microsoft's Angsana New, Browalia New, Cordia New, and EucrosiaUPC, which were extensively used at that time, with fonts created by Thai nationals. The competition was part of the "Standard Fonts for Thai Public Sectors" Project (โครงการฟอนต์มาตรฐานราชการไทย) proposed by the Ministry of Information and Communication Technology. The Ministry was quoted as saying: "...Various fonts are now used among the public agencies, that's why the state papers have never become standard. The fonts are also from the private companies which monopolise the rights over them, so we cannot use them as much as we should...".

On 7 September 2010, the Council of Ministers officially announced the thirteen fonts as the public fonts, naming them the "national fonts". The public agencies were ordered to use these fonts, especially TH Sarabun PSK, in their state papers. They were required to cease to use the private sector's fonts by 5 December 2010, King Bhumibol Adulyadej's 83rd birthday. The legislative branch and the judicial branch were also asked for cooperation.

Revision by Cadson Demak and Google Fonts
In 2018, Cadson Demak a local font foundry worked with Google Fonts to revise all existing 13 National Fonts, providing them with more hinting, a wider range of weights, and better Unicode support. There is also a new font "Thasadith" which was inspired by TH Srisakdi. All of those fonts were released under Open Font License. Cadson Demak expected that the release of these revised National Fonts to Google Fonts would result in higher adoption of Thai looped typefaces compared to Thai loopless typefaces.

Chulabhorn Likhit
On 6 July 2021, the Council of Ministers officially approved the royal font set "Chulabhorn Likhit", the 14th Thai government standard font set as proposed by the Chulabhorn Royal Academy. The font is named to celebrate Princess Chulabhorn on the occasion of her 64th birthday and her graduation from the Doctor of Philosophy program in the Visual Arts Department, Faculty of Painting, Sculpture and Graphic Arts at Silpakorn University.

Adoption
The font "TH Sarabun PSK" has been used in the Government Gazette of Thailand (ราชกิจจานุเบกษา; ) since January 2011, replacing Angsana New. The Gazette's first volume using such font is volume 128, part 1 A, dated 7 January 2011, in which the "Ministerial Regulation Determining the Criteria and Procedure for Acknowledging the Aircraft Type Certificates or Supplementary Type Certificates issues by the State Parties to the Conventions governing the Application for Certificates of Airworthiness or by the States with which Thailand has adopted the similar Agreements, BE 2553 (2010)" ("กฎกระทรวงกำหนดหลักเกณฑ์และวิธีการรับรองใบรับรองแบบอากาศยานหรือใบรับรองแบบส่วนเพิ่มเติมที่ออกโดยรัฐภาคีแห่งอนุสัญญาหรือประเทศที่ได้ทำความตกลงกับประเทศไทย เพื่อขอใบสำคัญสมควรเดินอากาศ พ.ศ. 2553") was published.

The font "TH Sarabun PSK" is also used on the current logo of Thai Wikipedia. This version of the logo was designed by Pratya Singto (ปรัชญา สิงห์โต), a graphic designer who runs f0nt.com, and was adopted by the Community as it won a competition in 2008.

Typefaces by Thai Linux Working Group
The following table list 13 typefaces published by Thai Linux Working Group; including Kinnari, Garuda and Norasi.

Fourteen National Fonts
The following table list 13 National Fonts that won the competition in 2006 along with Chulabhorn Likhit.

Google Fonts
There are currently 1639 font families on Google Fonts. 32 of those supports Thai script. The following table list all of the 32 fonts families.