Manop Srisomporn Archive 馬諾‧士索龐檔案藏品

The Manop Srisomporn Archive consists of 23 design sketches and typefaces, and 51 dry lettering sets. This collection represents his design practice across the dry transfer, phototypesetting, and digital eras of letter setting from the 1970s to the 1980s. Having had done laborious drawing of decorative letterings for the commercial sector, Srisomporn was already an accomplished freehand typographer and calligrapher prior to the prevalence of dry transfers in the early 1970s.

The sketches include both of Srisomporn’s ‘looped’ and ‘loopless’ typefaces, which are akin to serif and sans-serif fonts of Latin alphabets respectively. Srisomporn considered the specificities of the Thai alphabets’ construction and successfully translated the script into various standardised systems of typefaces.

He pioneered the radical loopless Manoptica font as a response to the rising popularity of the sans-serif font Helvetica, which was applied onto many imported products in the early 1970s. Srisomporn’s background in advertising also informed him to prioritise legibility, which may explain why many government agencies opted to use the MANOP typefaces for signage and other display purposes, such as the unofficial yet widespread application of MANOP 5 as the standard road sign typeface. Srisomporn’s career captured the modernisation of Thai visual communication and its production.

The Manop Srisomporn Archive was donated by Manop Srisomporn in 2018.