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Udaya Kumar Dharmalingam born 10 October 1978 in Kallakurichi, Tamil Nadu is the designer of the Indian rupee sign. His design was selected from among five short listed symbols. According to Udaya Kumar the design is based on the Indian tricolour.
He is an assistant professor at IIT Guwahati.
Personal life
Udaya Kumar is son of N. Dharmalingam, a former DMK MLA Tamil Nadu.
Academics
Udaya Kumar finished his schooling from la chatelaine, chennai. He obtained a bachelor's degree in architecture (B.Arch) from the School of Architecture and Planning (SAP) at Anna University, Chennai in 2001. Subsequently he received his master's degree, an MDes in Visual Communication, from the Industrial Design Centre (IDC) of IIT Bombay in 2003. He also did his doctoral studies at the IDC, receiving his PhD in 2010.
Research
His areas of interest include graphic design, typography, type design and design research with special focus on Tamil typography (the subject of his doctoral research).
He has also designed a Tamil font named "Parashakti" as a mini project at the IDC, under the guidance of Prof. G. V. Sreekumar, who is one of the few font experts in the country. During his MDes project he wrote and designed a book on Tamil typography, which is the first attempt at bringing such a subject to a Tamil audience. In this book Udaya Kumar also created new Tamil terminology for many typographic terms where English words were used.
He also provided guidance for the designing of the official mascot for the 49th Inter IIT Sports Meet.
Minister of Information and Broadcasting Ambika Soni approved the new Indian currency rupee symbol design conceptualized by Udaya Kumar on July 15, 2010. Udaya Kumar was awarded prize money of ₹ 250,000 for his efforts.