Bhinnêka tunggal ika tan hana dharma mangrwa.Kakawin Sutasoma, pupuh 139:5
Sutasoma has been selected as the official typeface of Ibu Kota Negara Nusantara, Indonesia’s new capital. It was chosen for the way it joins traditional and modern form: a homage to the archipelago’s many linguistic and calligraphic traditions, drawn as a contemporary, clean and readable letter. Its strokes carry the idea of unity in diversity, a founding principle of the nation, and let the capital hold on to its roots while looking ahead.
Indonesia spans more than 17,000 islands, with at least 750 languages across 2,452 regions. That diversity lived in its own complexity until Bahasa Indonesia was recognised as the national language in 1945, alongside independence, and became a bridge between cultures.
Each regional language stores information that keeps people connected to their past. The words used in naming are lexical traces of our existence. Since PUEBI was introduced in 2015, the standard spelling has simplified how the sounds of each culture are written, and some of those traces of authenticity have been lost.
Culture has to keep transforming to stay relevant. Typography, as the most basic unit of written language and communication, should stay in step with the cultural expressions around it, in line with the story of building the new capital.
Sutasoma grew out of literature research, interviews with typography practitioners in Indonesia and conversations with cultural researchers. Its name comes from the Kakawin Sutasoma, the fourteenth-century Old Javanese poem by Mpu Tantular that contains the national motto, Bhinneka Tunggal Ika: unity in diversity.