I knew that the Nastaliq script was going to be a challenge, but I didn't realise how big a challenge until I started working on it. Working on Gulzar stressed the OpenType technology to its limit; we had to develop a whole new language for expressing layout, automatic kerning algorithms, tools for detecting and avoiding collisions, a rigorous layout testing framework - with so much complexity, even getting the font to successfully was a challenge at times!

Thankfully I worked with a designer who had the same philosophy as me: that technical difficulties should never become an excuse to compromise the design. We worked through the issues, devised new solutions, and came up with a spectacular result.

Gulzar is currently in the final stages of testing and will be available as a libre (free) font in the near future.