Meet the Face Behind the Fancy Fonts

Suon May Sophanith has spent almost seven years working on designs aimed at giving students choices of Khmer fonts for academic and communication uses. Photo provided by Spohanith

PHNOM PENH – New and innovative Khmer font designs on the KonKhmer_Makny website are familiar to users but some may not know who is behind this work.



Suon May Sophanith has spent almost seven years working on designs aimed at giving students choices of Khmer fonts for academic and communication uses.



May Sophanith loves Khmer font designs and has 22 varieties which are free for students and non-business use.



He started in 2015, when there were few designs, to help students and the next generation and make their work easier and more attractive.



His fonts are fancy and users use them mostly in titles for artwork. 



Kh Phanith Bobble is one of fonts on his site, which he spent about six months creating and released recently.



He can keep designing Khmer fonts because he doesn’t expect too much from this job. He works in a private company for his living.

His fonts are fancy and users use them mostly in titles for artwork. Photo provided by Sophanith 

After graduating from high school, he continued his studies at Phnom Penh International University majoring in information technology and graduated in 2021.



Asked why he does not charge for some of the work, he said students and new designers mostly don’t have enough money to buy fonts and because he wants to contribute his work to society.



However, he said, “If private company and business people use it for business purposes, I encourage them to pay because it inspires us to continue our mission in font creation.”



People who have been working in the sector for a longer time did not do this work because they needed to buy equipment and it took a lot of time, he said.



A lack of support from companies and the private sector meant they got no benefit from it.



“Beside materials, it takes at least three months to make one Khmer font,” he said.



“It needs a lot of commitment and support from private companies to make this sector develop.”

Kh Phanith Bobble is one of fonts on his site, which he spent about six months creating and released recently. Photo provided by Sophanith

He asked people who used the fonts to make money to give back something to designers to motivate them to produce more. They should not wait only for free stuff.



As a graphic designer at a Commercial Bank in Phnom Penh, he doesn’t have much time to design more fonts, but he tries to do it at night. He could continue his work because he does not expect to benefit much from it and he can survive on main job.



He hopes for encouragement from users such as companies that can afford to pay to use the fonts.


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