Massira Spray, one of my graduation Arabic fonts at Type & Media / KABK, was used for This Is Not a Love Song exhibition at The Empty Quarter in DIFC in Dubai, UAE.

Art Reoriented, a curatorial and art consulting practice specializing in contemporary art from the Middle East, was founded by Till Fellrath and Sam Bardaouil.

Art Reoriented logotype. The word Art reads when the logo is straight, and once flipped/reoriented the word becomes Art in Arabic (فن).

Text from Sam Bardaouil (co-founder of Art Reoriented with Till Fellrath):
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Art Reoriented is a curatorial and art consulting practice specializing in contemporary art from the Middle East. Since our inception, it was important to achieve a brand identity that highlights our area of expertise and reflects our equal grounding in museum practices, contemporary art developments and cultural management. Furthermore, it was essential to create a visual language that reflects our cultural interests.

Our Logo and overall corporate identity, developed in close collaboration with Mr. Zoghbi, manage to achieve all of these objectives. The typographic play on merging the words “Art” and “Fann-Art in Arabic” speaks clearly of our juxtaposition of East and West, without allowing one to upstage the other. The superimposing of diamond glazes on our business cards makes subtle references to a more traditional Middle Eastern aesthetic. Yet, the design steers away from the stereotypical visual language that is generally associated with that region. Moreover, the overall design sensibility from Logo and business cards to letterheads, stationary and Website is referential yet contemporary, creative yet functional and meets every goal we had hoped to meet with our branding. Pascal: no one could have done it better!

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Business card with UV-Spot diamond shape pattern.

Business card and Letterhead.

Primary options and alternatives for the logo before the final form was chosen.

Below are some pages from the website:
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I moved in my new studio this week, and we had a small cooking party. It was fun to make Light Arabic cookie letters by hand and have them come out from the oven Extra Bold. The Arabic chocolate letters tasted great and also looked fat and awesome!

Arabic Chocolate Letters “Ghain”, “Jeem” and “Yeh”

It was fun!

Making the Arabic letters by hand in a Light weight.

Putting them in the oven.

The letters come out Extra Bold and Yummi!

The cycles goes one for another set of letters.

& the cookies are served.

Welcome Lebanon!
(quoted from the the waiter Charbel at Le Chef restaurant in Gemeyzé, Beirut)

This piece was created specially for “the future of tradition – the tradition of future” exhibition at hausderkunst in Munich. It challenges our perception of delicate islamic carpets. Following the trademark signature of Nada Debs, it combines elements of the Middle and Far East. Like tatami mats, it is composed of modular elements that combine to form a long islamic carpet. It combines old and new techniques: concrete inlaid with mother-of-pearl. It uses the Arabic script to create Haiku-like ‘concrete’ poetry, dedicating each of the 28 panels to one letter of the Arabic alphabet where all words starting with that letter are arranged to create a visual and musical rhythm.

The meaning of the carpet lies in its negation of a didactic meaning, and in Nada’s words: ‘it is what it is, it is grounded in the present moment. The font used in the design was developed in collaboration with Pascal Zoghbi as a corporate font for Nada Debs, and is presented for the first time in this design piece. It mixes the calligraphic tradition of Kanji and Arabic calligraphy in a contemporary geometric design, and in this sense is a true signature of Nada Debs.

Paragraph written by Huda AbiFares / Khatt Foundation.

Nada Debs’s Concrete Poetry on Concrete Carpetwas exhibited in the Khatt Foundation section of the exhibition entitled Letters Off the Page.

Nada Debs. Concrete Poetry on Concrete Carpet. 2010.
9m x 3m concrete slabs with mother of pearl.

Nada Debs. Concrete Poetry on Concrete Carpet. 2010.
9m x 3m concrete slabs with mother of pearl.

Nada Debs Arabic font is a simplified Kufi font with high contrast between the vertical and horizontal pen strokes.

Nada Debs design studio is a modern interior and industrial design house focusing on eastern patterns and geometry in the design of their furniture and spaces. The type is directly inspired from the diamond Arabic dot shape as well as the geometric Kufi script that is in close relationship with arabesque and eastern patterns.

The structure of the type allows it to be implemented easily into the eastern furniture. The letters can by carved into wood structures or imbedded into cement pieces…

The font reflects the identity of Nada Debs furniture which are elegant and modern pieces and at the same time based on the eastern arts and structures.

Karim Joreige designed the Latin letters in the font prior to the Arabic.

In return for the Arabic type design, Nadine Hajjar at Nada Debs design studio designed the desk and shelving system for my new studio.

The desk was designed with open drawers and metallic arabesque pattern imbedded into the black painted wood.

The shelving system is a large black wooden structure standing from the floor to the ceiling. The shelves and sections in it are created from the indic figures 29 referring to the name of my design studio.

There was an array of interesting speakers at NUQAT Design Conference 2012 this year. Talks concerning contemporary use of Arab Islamic Art and Arabesque were addressed from Graphic Design, Type Designers, Products Designers, Jewelry Designers, Industrial Designers, Photographer, Calligraphers, etc.

From my part, I gave a talk about my journey in the Arabic Type Design field and gave a workshop about Kufic Arabesque constructions.

Lecture:
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Arabic Type Now
DFIC Venue.
18th of March, 14:45

is a talk about the present status of Arabic fonts, Arabic type designers and the technology behind their creation and development. Different Arabic type design schools will be throughout the talk. Interesting contemporary Arabic typefaces will be showcased from the 29ArabicLetters [29LT] fonts collection and other renowned type foundries developing contemporary Arabic typefaces.
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WORKSHOP:
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Square Kufi / Arabesque Patterns

Tashkeel Venue.
Afternoon Workshops: DAY 4 – 6
20th till the 22nd of March

The workshop will grant the participants the comprehension of Arabic Kufic patterns and will enable them to create their own Square and/or Floral Kufic patterns. The workshop will begin with a talk introducing the three main Kufic calligraphic styles: Archaic Kufic, Floral Modern Kufic and Square Kufic, and then it will move on to become a Hands-On drawing session of arabesque patterns. Participants will create arabesque typographic patterns from both the Floral and Square Kufic Letterforms and structures. Besides acquiring the technique of drawing Kufic, by the end of the workshop participants will be able to decipher Geometric Kufic patterns into words and sentences instead of perceiving them as abstract shapes.

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29LT Makina is a revival of an Arabic, Persian and Latin typewriter. “Makina” in Arabic means ‘machine’, which is inspired from the translation of a typewriter from English to Arabic. The type-family contains 3 weights (Light, Regular & Bold) with each containing ligatures, stylistic sets and contextual alternates.

Technical drawing of the Optima typewriter found in its original catalogue.

The story of Makina started a few years back when I went on a hunt for a traditional Arabic typewriter while working on a project with a designer colleague of mine. The hunt started in Beirut and ended in Damascus. In Beirut, I started with the Sunday Market, then the antique shops in Beirut’s souqs, Byblos, Tripoli, and ended with the Basta region. In Damascus, I started in Souq al Hamadiya and then visited shops where employees still type documents on typewriters, slightly outside the city-centre of Damascus. I typeset several samples and took plenty of photos in each location and documented the names of the machines along with the date and place.

Original type-specimen that is found inside the typewriter box.

After several investigations and inquiries, I ended up finding the source of typewriters in Lebanon; Najjar Continental. I found their small shop in Hamra street with some typewriters displayed. Some were 60 year-old machines while others dated a few decades back. After several visits to their shop and a brief introduction to their history, I discovered that they were the main developers and distributors in Lebanon and the Middle East from the 1950s till the 80s, before the computer technology took over the market. They took me to their storage area and it was like a treasure cave full of old typewriters. Mostly Optima and Continental Brands with languages ranging from Arabic, Persian, English and French.

A sample of the typesetting trial papers i did during my visits to Najjar Continental in Hamra.

I kept on visiting Najjar Continental and typesetting samples from different machines until I selected the best sample to create the fonts from. My index fingers went sore and were stained black for some days, while the sound of the keys being typed made a rhythm that broke the silence of the store.

Besides finding the best machine for each language to typeset on, I had to come up with a technique to create the light and bold weight alongside the standard regular weight. This was due to the fact that the machines only came with a regular weight with an option of changing the colour of the ink. The bold weight was created by manually holding the cylinder (the piece that holds the paper) in place which stopped the paper from moving, allowing me to type the same glyph one on top of the other, in turn fattening the letter and clotting the counters.

A lot more experimenting had to be done when creating the light weight. My first trial was starting out by trying to press lighter on the buttons, hoping for a lighter hit of the glyph on the paper, resulting in a thinner letter. That failed. The second trial was having two papers on top of each other, hoping to soften the hit of the metal glyph on the paper. That also failed. My third attempt was after I discovered the emboss feature of the typewriter. This option allows typing without ink. This meant that typing regular mode followed by typing on emboss mode ends up with less ink on the paper. The residue of the first hit of the glyph during regular typing showed up when typing in emboss mode; therefore resulting in lighter letters. It is the humble Eureka moment, and the sample typeset papers kept going.

Scans of the letter m glyph with different trials.

Scans of the letter M glyph with different trials.

Scans of the letter g glyph with different trials.

Scans of the letter G glyph with different trials.

Scans of the letter e glyph with different trials.

Scans of the letter E glyph with different trials.

Scans of the letter a glyph with different trials.

Scans of the letter A glyph with different trials.

Scans of the Arabic letter SAD glyph with different trials.

Scans of the Arabic letter QAF glyph with different trials.

Scans of the Arabic letter LAM-ALEF glyph with different trials.

Scans of the Arabic letter JEEM glyph with different trials.

Scans of the Arabic letter GHAIN glyph with different trials.

Scans of the Arabic letter FA’ glyph with different trials.

Scans of the Arabic letter DAD glyph with different trials.

Scans of the Arabic letter Ain glyph with different trials.

Transferring the rough ink embedded glyphs into digital outline curves was the third phase. The typeset papers had to be scanned with highest resolution available to have it as faithful to the original typewriter effect as possible. Several image manipulations were needed before having the best black and white proportions for each of the three weights. All glyphs had to be organised and sorted with all its trials before digitalising them into rough outlines. The best result from each glyph was selected and imported into the font developing software.

Typewriters are known to be monospaced (all glyphs have the same width), but this is not the case with Arabic. The later has three different widths defined depending on the need of each letter: tight, normal, wide. This is echoed in Makina where the Latin glyphs were kept monospaced while the Arabic retained its three glyph different widths. Arabic glyphs like the Alif, Ra’, Dal, Meem, etc were assigned the tight width; while glyphs like Ha’, Ain, Ya’, etc had the normal width; and isolated forms of the glyphs Ba’, Ta’, Seen, Sad, etc were set in the wide width.

The design of Makina is faithful to the design and letter variations in the traditional arabic typewriter. Due to the limited number of keys on the typewriter keyboard, the Arabic script needed to be simplified and letter variations were reduced to minimal except for complex letters like the Ain and the Ha’. Letters like Alef, Dal, Thal, Ra’, Zain, Waw, etc. that usually have isolated and final letterforms in standard font; they only have isolated shape in the typewriter. Letters like Ba’, Ta’,Hah, Seen, Sad, Fa’, Qaf, Kaf, Lam, Meem, Noon,Ya’, etc. that usually have four letterform variations in initial, medial, final and isolated forms; they only have two letterform variation that are initial and isolated. The isolated form is used for both final and isolated, while the initial form is used for both initial and medial. Only the letters Ain, Ghain retain there four letterform variations while the Ha’ retains three of the four.

Three glyph alternates are created for each letterform in the Arabic and the Latin script in order to mimic as close as possible the randomness of the typewriter print of letters on paper. Advanced Open Type ( Stylistic Sets & Contextual Alternates) features were added to the font to allow a random cycle of glyphs’ alternates while typesetting Makina. More then 900 glyphs are present in each weight of the type family of Light, Regular and Bold.

Sample of some Arabic and Latin glyphs with their three alternates that will randomly cycle in the font will typesetting.

Alongside the Lam-Aelf ligatures, the elevated tooth which proceeds the letters Ra’, Zain and Noon was present in the typewriter keyboard. Hence the ligatures Ba’-Ra’, Ba’-Zain, Ba’-Noon, and all corresponding teeth variations were created in Makina.

Finally, all missing glyphs that are need in the font like Arabic accents, Urdu letters, extended Farsi and Urdu figures, extended Western European glyphs, punctuation, symbols, etc. were designed and created to cover all the character set for Arabic, Farsi, Urdu and Latin.

The Museum of Islamic Art, Doha, Qatar.

MIA type is a contemporary, bilingual Arabic and Latin type-family based on the Eastern Kufic calligraphic style drawn in four weights: Light, Regular, Bold, and Black.

The Museum of Islamic Art building is one of the most iconic landmarks in Doha. The renowned architect, I.M Pei, designed the museum with clear inspiration from Islamic architecture. He wanted to find the essence of Islamic architecture and to uncover its pure forms. The central courtyard of Ahmad Ibn Tulun mosque in Cairo and Monastir Fort in Tunisia were some of the structures that represented for him the purity and spirit of Islamic architecture.

Ahmad Ibn Tulun Mosque in Cairo, Egypt.

The Museum of Islamic Art, Doha, Qatar.

Back in 2009 I visited the museum and was fascinated as much by the architecture as the Islamic art treasures displayed inside it. The play of light and shadow within the museum spaces as well as the outside facades reveal the museum’s unique characteristics, displaying a balance between light and dark, void and mass, and cubes and flats.

When the time came to work on the corporate type for the museum contracted by the Qatar Museum Authority (QMA), I partnered up with Landor Dubai, since they were handling the overall redesign of the new branding They briefed me on several of the branding models they were working on. I had the assignment to create type concept/s in support of each of their design approach/es. From four design concepts we ended up with one: The Cube; The House of Wisdom; The House of Art & Culture. The cube perspective structure, which is inspired from the architecture of the building, became the base unit for the creation of a contemporary arabesque grid that in turn became the concealed structure for the whole new corporate identity of the museum including the custom typeface.

Primary sketches for MIA type with different design approaches.

Skeleton sketch trials for MIA type.

The bespoke MIA typeface had to incorporate the attributes of the design brief by becoming: 1. Contemporary type based on the arabesque cubic grid created for the corporate identity, and 2. Serious corporate type with a unique geometric quality.

Inspired from I.M Pei’s research on the essence of Islamic architecture, I took on the challenge of finding the essence of Arabic calligraphy. I undertook extended research on Archaic Kufic and Eastern Kufic since the Kufic script is the essence of Arabic calligraphy. Arabic calligraphy books focusing on manuscript analysis and studies like “Splendors of the Quran Calligraphy & illumination” by Martin Ling and “Ink and Gold: Islamic Calligraphy” by Fraser & Kwiatkowski were the start of my extensive research for the unique Arabic letterforms. Manuscript images compiled from photographs I took in museums around the world in the past years alongside web image databases became valuable sources for the inspiration and sketching phases.

Sample image of an old manuscripts written in the Eastern Kufic Style.

Sample image of an old manuscripts written in the Eastern Kufic Style.

Sample image of an old manuscripts written in the Eastern Kufic Style.

Sample image of an old manuscripts written in the Eastern Kufic Style.

Sample image of an old manuscripts written in the Eastern Kufic Style.

After an analytical study of the manuscripts, I produced a matrix documenting the different letter shapes of each of the 29 Arabic letters. I made several drawings for each glyph in order to find the proper solution for the design problematic. The glyphs had to be developed based on the grid we mentioned earlier, have unique postures, and stay legible and easily recognizable for fast reading. The contrast between the light and shadows in the museum building is transformed into the contrast between the thick and thin pen strokes found in the letters. The heavy letter heads, loops, and bowls were contrasted with ultra-thin finials and terminals that are found in the type.

Below is the documentation and trials for the letter Ha’ as a sample of the whole study and analysis done on the letterforms:

Documentation of some letteforms for the Arabic letter Ha’ in medial position in the Archaic and Eastern Kufic Styles.

Drawing trials for the medial Arabic letter Ha’.

The Arabic and Latin glyphs were drawn simultaneously to ensure the design concept and grid structure worked properly in both scripts. The primary letters were drawn strictly in line with the grid that proved problematic, since some letters looked too rigid or out of proportion. Several trials later, we decided to break away from the grid but keep the basic structure of the letter following the main lines of the cubic grid.

Based on the Eastern Kufic style, below are some typographic anatomy descriptions of the typeface:

• Some of the verticals in the Arabic letters are straight while others are slanted to the left. The Alef, Tah, Lam, etc. have straight verticals, while the Seen, Kaf, Ra’, Waw, etc. have slanted verticals. A balance between the straight and slanted verticals needed to be proportionate with the size of the heads, loops, bowls, and bellies of the glyphs.

• The bowls in the letters Noon, Lam, Seen, Sheen, Sad, Dad, and Qaf have an extremely open and edgy structure as well as the bellies of the letters Jeem, Ha’, Kha’, Ain, and Ghain.

• The Ba’ and Fa’ isolated family have an open-ended horizontal structure without a closing terminal.

• No full circular structure is present in any of the heads or loops like the letters Meem, Waw, Fa’, Ha’, etc., but a balanced structure between curved strokes and straight edgy lines giving the counters a unique characteristic and proportional setting.

• The Latin counterpart letters were drawn in the same spirit as the Arabic. The counters in the Latin letters like the a, b, d, g, p, q, etc. had to echo the shapes of the heads and loops in the Arabic letters, while the terminal and finials of the lowercase glyphs f, g, j, l, r, t, and y match the look and feel of the open-ended bowls and bellies of their Arabic equivalents.

• The finals and terminals in the letters have a unique curved structure with sharp edges.

Arabic letter Ghain in the 4 weights of MIA

Latin capital letter M in the 4 weights of MIA

Since the Latin capital letter M is the start of the logotype MIA, several options were made and extensive testing and surveys were done until we got to the final desired shape that all parties could agree on. I could not believe at some point that the capital letter M could have so many alternatives and could be at the heart of so many passionate debates.

The type-family consists of four weights: the Light and Regular are mono-linear while the Bold and Black have extreme contrast. Since the Light and Regular were going to be set mostly for running text, we decided to keep them mono-linear in order to preserve the legibility of the font. The typeface already has unorthodox letterforms, which are not very familiar to the standard reader, and adding slight contrast to the light weights would have hindered the reading experience even further. The Bold and Black on the other hand have extreme contrast between the thin and thick stokes since they will be used primarily for display setting and in big sizes. The contrast in the heavy weights gives the font an elegant serious feel, bringing it closer to the traditional Eastern Kufic style.

MIA type-family is used for all the newly created branding identity items, publications, signage, web apps and platforms, etc… MIA Café, MIA Gift Shop, The Park At MIA, Education Center, The Library and Auditorium are the different spaces in the museum where the type is applied on the signage as well as for print materials, promotional products and packaging.

Tickets Design – Landor Dubai

Flyer Design – Landor Dubai

Booklet Design – Landor Dubai

Flyer Design – Landor Dubai

Poster Design – Landor Dubai

Poster Design – Landor Dubai

Poster Design – Landor Dubai

Banners Design – Landor Dubai

Banners Design – Landor Dubai

Banners Design – Landor Dubai

Packaging Design – Landor Dubai

Paper Bag Design – Landor Dubai

Bag Design – Landor Dubai

Website Design – Landor Dubai

The Arabic version of Hard Rock Cafe and Hotel word-mark is created in collaboration with Duncan/Channon and Hard Rock’s internal design team.

The Arabic logotype had to echo the characteristics and proportions of the English logotype. The Kufi script was chosen as the reference for the development of the Arabic letters in the Logo. The slant in the Latin was kept in the Arabic version of the mark but in the opposite direction from right to left.

Standard, and outlined versions of the Arabic logotype are designed. The colors orange and dark-red were used for the Hard Rock Café logo, while the blue-violet and yellow were used for the Hard Rock Hotel logo.

Bukra typeface from 29LT type collection is adopted as the corporate type for the Arabic brand. The description and name of the cities will be typeset using Bukra Type family.

The Arabic word mark is going to be implemented in the coming months/year in the Arabic nations. Current Cafes in the Middle East are in : Bahrain, Hurghada, Sharm el Sheikh, Kuwait, Beirut, Dubai. The first Hard Rock Hotel in the region will be Abu Dhabi and other cities will follow.

Primary sketches for the Arabic brand.

Creation of the Arabic logotype based on the same proportions of the Latin and the flipped slant.

The English and Arabic word-marks side by side.

Azer in Arabic means friendly, ready to assist and lend a hand. This multilingual typeface combines simple lines with careful detailing to create a serious but approachable look. The Arabic is a Naskh/Kufi hybrid and retains a balance between calligraphic angular cuts and unadorned construction. The Latin is a humanist sans-serif with crisp cuts based on the broad nib pen calligraphic structure and contemporary outlines. The fonts include Arabic, Farsi, Urdu and Latin variants. Azer is available in five weights, ranging from a delicate thin ideal for refined headlines to a thick black perfect for chunky titles and in-text emphasis.

Where Arabic typefaces have a strong horizontal structure because of baseline letter connections, Latin typefaces have a vertical rhythm because of an upright stem structure present in most glyphs. To resolve this discrepancy, Azer Latin was drawn with conic shaped stems, inspired by the Arabic Alef glyph. The thirty-degree angle of the broad nib pen increases the horizontal stress of the Latin letters, which brings the overall color of the Latin text closer to the Arabic Text.

The Arabic and the Latin mirror each other’s appearances much like fraternal twins with compatible attitudes. Azer Latin is earnest and sincere; Azer Arabic is direct and austere.

The Naskh calligraphic style of the Arabic variant is complemented by a calligraphic broad nip pen technique in the Latin, creating strong pen strokes: crisp broken cuts with open and fluid letter structure.

Azer is approachable without being sloppy, serious without being conformist. The typeface combines charm, simplicity and consideration.

This mix of influences defines the “flavor” of the Latin, making it an interesting original typeface that is not only a perfect match for its Arabic counterpart, but also a friendly standalone typeface with a lot of personality. It can also be considered an original Latin typeface with a good Arabic companion.

In 2008, Azer was designed part of a branding project Wael Morcos and I, Pascal Zoghbi, were collaborating on. When the Global Financial crisis took its toll on the UAE, the project was postponed indefinitely and the first outlines of the font remained unfinished.

There remained a strong need, however, to address the shortcomings of contemporary Arabic typography, which tends to be either too classical or too resistant to the aesthetic values of Arabic Calligraphy.

We resumed the design in preparation for the launch of the 29LT type foundry. As the Arabic design took shape, we contacted Ian Party from SwissTypefaces to design the Latin companion. Ian loved the outlines and cuts and was enthusiastic to draw the Latin inspired from the Arabic structures. As such, Azer is one of the few multilingual typefaces originated in Arabic.

The design progressed over a two-year period during which the three of us collaborated to bring the fonts to fruition. Azer will be one of the typefaces published as part of the official launch of the 29LT type foundry in August 2013.

Azer comes in five weights (thin, light, regular, bold, black) and includes over 200 Arabic Ligatures that lend distinctive calligraphic character to contemporary type. When turned on, the ligatures change the look of the design and add energy to the line, making the words richer and more expressive.

The two scripts share many characteristics including overall proportions, contrast, open counters and endings, terminal and finial structure, as well as diamond-shaped diacritic dots.

Graffiti: Changing Language, Changing Worlds اللغة تتحول، العالم يتغير
Designers: Pascal Zoghbi and DUAL
Mural Painting: DUAL
Wall Size: 10 feet x 156 feet

The Below text is written by Keelin Burrows who is the Curator of the project at THE PRINTING MUSEUM, Houston, USA.

Changing Language, Changing Worlds is the collaborative work by Beirut-based, Lebanese graphic artist, Pascal Zoghbi and local graffiti artist, DUAL.  They designed and executed the typographical mural for the museum’s western exterior wall, creating a dialogue amongst artists of different ethnicities and nationalities, as well as different artistic backgrounds.  This pilot project for the museum was intended to engage existing and new audiences, including the surrounding neighborhood and the Arab-American community in Houston.  This project, while serving to bridge communities, also serves to bridge the divide between languages, written and spoken.
 

The mural is centered along Zoghbi’s hand drawn and digitally rendered calligraphic script, executed in black latex paint. The Arabic script is written and read from right to left. Intertwined with the Arabic lettering is the English translation, which reveals in vibrant, interchanging colors the project’s title “Changing Language, Changing Worlds”. The shapes of the Arabic letters are altered depending on their position in the word as can be seen in the different renderings of the Arabic word for “changing”.

DUAL’s letters, in magenta and cyan, are inspired from American sign painting traditions. He creates letterforms that are distinct and legible, but stylized. His work incorporates visual irony in his use of CMYK and halftoning effects, which reference the technical characteristics of printing. He explains that the first word “Changing” is based on a serif typeface, while the second and fourth words “Languages” and “Worlds” are inspired from the font-type Helvetica with a beveled inflection. The third word, also “Changing”, has a southwestern influence apropos to Houston. Similar to the disappearance of calligraphic shop signs in the Arab world, DUAL, like his Arab contemporaries, is keeping alive the tradition of sign painting through his reinterpreted letterforms and graffiti.

In contrast, Zoghbi’s writing is based on the calligraphic tradition deeply rooted in Arabic culture.  Inspired from the archaic Kufic script, an ancient writing often used in copying the Qur’an from the 8th through the 10th centuries, his lettering resurrects a style that has been marginalized by the predominance of printed culture.  With the introduction of western printing technologies in the 16th century, the secular and more common cursive styles were adapted as typefaces for spreading religious and political information throughout Arab countries.  Through the development and advancement of digital technologies, the means of type design has become more flexible and affordable bringing type design closer to the hands of Arab designers, as opposed to western manufacturers who primarily made type based on Latinized versions of fonts.  The Kufic style is now being revived and reclaimed by contemporary Arabic graphic designers, such as Zoghbi, and reinterpreted into new fonts for a changing Arabic world. 

 
Ultimately, the printed word, whether made manifest by hand or machine, is a major mechanism of communication.  Letters are not only written elements of an alphabet that combine to form words, they are symbols of larger cultural narratives.  The style and means by which a message is conveyed represents broader histories and meanings—often the social, political, and economic forces at play in societies.  Subsequently, this mural engages, as well as challenges the museum’s mission, which is “to promote, preserve, and share the knowledge of printed communication and art as the greatest contributors to the development of the civilized world and the continuing advancement of freedom and literacy.”

This mural commission is in conjunction with the exhibition Contemporary Arabic Graffiti and Lettering: Photographs of a Visual Revolution, on view at The Printing Museum through September 13, 2014.  Inspired from the 2011 publication Arabic Graffiti written by Don Stone Karl and Pascal Zoghbi, the exhibition of 30 photographs examines how contemporary Arabic graffiti artists, mostly from Middle Eastern descent, are reviving and reinterpreting Arabic letter forms into a new graphic style, creating lettering and typography that is becoming a part of an increasingly globalized design field and practice.
 

The Changing Language, Changing Worlds mural project is underwritten by Mid-America Arts Alliance (M-AAA), which is supported by public, local, state, and federal agencies, as well as private contributors. Addi­tional support is provided by the Arab-American Cultural and Community Center (ACC) of Houston, and the American Institute of Graphic Artists, (AIGA) Houston. Major support for The Printing Museum operations and programming is provided by the Houston Endowment, Inc., The Wortham Foundation, Inc., The Brown Founda­tion, Inc., and Mid-America Arts Alliance. The Printing Museum is funded by grants from the City of Houston through Houston Arts Alliance. Additional support is generously provided by the George and Mary Josephine Hamman Foundation, the Kinder Morgan Foundation, the Albert and Ethel Hersztein Foundation, Saint Arnold Brewing Company, CenterPoint Energy, Clampitt Paper, InfoVine Inc., Copy.Com, Spindletop Design, and Whole Foods Market.
 

*Unfortunately, due to a broken foot, Pascal Zoghbi was unable to travel to the U.S. for the execution of the mural.  He hopes to visit Houston at the end of August or early September to deliver his lecture “Arabic Type Now:  Contemporary Letters Inspired from Archaic Manuscripts”.  Dates and time are to be determined.  Please visit The Printing Museum’s website http://www.printingmuseum.org for more details.
 

29LT Zeyn is an elegant, contemporary Arabic and Latin typeface. Each weight contains 900-plus glyphs covering the Arabic, Persian, Urdu, and Western European languages. The Arabic set contains an extensive set of ligatures in addition to short and long stylistic sets to give the font an added elegant appeal and feel.

Zeyn «زين» is an Arabic word meaning beautiful, graceful, and elegant.

Arabic character set designed by Pascal Zoghbi from 29LT. Latin Character set designer by Ian Party from SwissTypefaces.

The Zeyn type family of four weights (Light, Regular, Medium and Bold) are derived from the corporate typefaces created in 2010 for Shawati’ Magazine, the cultural magazine about the United Arab Emirates.

The Arabic is inspired from both Naskh and Thuluth calligraphic styles, while the Latin is drawn based on the Modern Serif Roman style. The letterforms are drawn with extreme refinement and high contrast between the thick and thin pen strokes that unveil modernity in a stylish approach. The Arabic and Latin were created simultaneously and without any sacrifice from one script on behalf of the other. The elements that bring both scripts together are the design approach, the proportions, the weight, and the contrast.

We designed each letter in a special way, making sure that they all had the extreme thick and extreme thin pen strokes. The extreme contrast was coupled with strong cuts and edges to give the font a strong and crispy feel. We drew the Arabic letters with a free approach. We cut the letterforms’ descenders in an elegant, thin open stroke instead of curving back into the main figure of the letter. We created the loop structures in the letters in an original manner with extra extended strokes with thin endings, as opposed to the traditional fully circular or triangular approach.

29LT Posters designed by Reza Abedini. Each poster is designed with one of 29LT fonts.

29LT multilingual fonts (Arabic/Latin) were offered to the renowned Iranian graphic designer Mr. Reza Abedini to experiment with and create typographic posters for each of the typefaces.

I became friends with Reza in 2008 and later-on colleagues at AUB (American University of Beirut). Since then, we always thought of what kind of collaboration we can collaborate on, but constantly busy schedules postponed our intentions and willingness.

29LT Posters were made available for the first time at Nuqat Design conference 2014 via The Yard bookstore.

29LT Azer Poster designed by Reza Abedini

29LT Azer Type-Family

Azer’s asymmetrically modern characters connect to infuse a reassuring presence to your text‭.‬
حروف‭ ‬آزر‭ ‬الحديثة‭ ‬المتباينة‭ ‬تنضمّ‭ ‬فتضفي‭ ‬لمسةً‭ ‬مريحةً‭ ‬على‭ ‬نصّكم‭.‬

Name Meaning معنى‭ ‬الإسم
Help‭, ‬support  ‬والعون ،‭ ‬والمساعدة،‭ ‬المساندة

Category الفئة
Text and display type خطّ‭ ‬عرض‭ ‬ومحتوى

Arabic Style الطّراز‭ ‬العربيّ
Naskh النّسخ

Latin‭ ‬Style الطّراز‭ ‬اللّاتينيّ 
Sans Serif ‭ ‬خطّ‭ ‬سان‭ ‬سريف

29LT Bukra Poster designed by Reza Abedini

29LT Bukra Type-Family

Bukra’s geometric structure sheds the frills to deliver your clear corporate message‭.‬
هيكلة‭ ‬خطّ‭ ‬بكرا‭ ‬الهندسيّة‭ ‬تتخلّص‭ ‬من‭ ‬أيّ‭ ‬تكلّف‭ ‬لتزويدكم‭ ‬بالتّالي‭ ‬برسالة‭ ‬تجاريّة‭ ‬واضحة‭.‬

Name Meaning معنى‭ ‬الإسم
Tomorrow ‬غدًا‭

Category الفئة
Text and display type خطّ‭ ‬عرض‭ ‬ومحتوى

Arabic Style الطّراز‭ ‬العربيّ
Kufic الخطّ‭ ‬الكوفيّ

Latin‭ ‬Style الطّراز‭ ‬اللّاتينيّ 
Sans Serif ‭ ‬خطّ‭ ‬سان‭ ‬سريف
‭
 

29LT Kaff Poster designed by Reza Abedini

29LT Kaff Type-Family will be available in early 2015.

29LT Makina Poster designed by Reza Abedini

29LT Makina Type-Family

Makina stands out of its display frame by recreating the charm of typewriting‭.‬
‭ ‬إنّ‭ ‬خطّ‭ ‬ماكينة‭ ‬يبرز‭ ‬من‭ ‬إطار‭ ‬عرضه‭ ‬عبر‭ ‬استرجاع‭ ‬سحر‭ ‬الطّباعة‭ ‬على‭ ‬الآلة‭ ‬الكاتبة‭.‬

Name Meaning معنى‭ ‬الإسم
Machine ماكينة

Category الفئة
Text type خطّ‭ ‬محتوى

Arabic Style الطّراز‭ ‬العربيّ
Simplified Naskh النّسخ‭ ‬المبسّط

Latin‭ ‬Style الطّراز‭ ‬اللّاتينيّ 
Mono-linear‭ & ‬mono-width type خطّ‭ ‬ذو‭ ‬سماكة‭ ‬وعرض‭ ‬متساوييْن

29LT Massira Poster designed by Reza Abedini

29LT Massira Type-Family
Massira is the typeface that refuses confinement and projects the destabilizing urgency of change‭.‬
مسيرة‭ ‬يُعتبر‭ ‬خطّاّ‭ ‬يرفض‭ ‬الأسر‭ ‬ويعكس‭ ‬ضرورة‭ ‬التّغيير‭ ‬الملحّة‭ ‬والقاطعة‭.‬

Name Meaning معنى‭ ‬الإسم
Demonstration‭, ‬march مظاهرة،‭ ‬ومسيرة

Category الفئة
Text and display type خطّ‭ ‬عرض‭ ‬ومحتوى

Arabic Style الطّراز‭ ‬العربيّ
Ruq’a خطّ‭ ‬الرّقعة

29LT Zarid Poster designed by Reza Abedini

29LT Zarid Type-Family will be available in early 2015.

29LT Zeyn Poster designed by Reza Abedini

29LT Zeyn Type-family

With its fleeting edges and graceful drift‭, ‬Zeyn permeates the authentic tradition of the cursive‭.‬
‭ ‬خطّ‭ ‬زين‭ ‬يعزّز‭ ‬تقليد‭ ‬الأحرف‭ ‬المتّصلة‭ ‬الأصيل،‭ ‬وذلك‭ ‬فضلاً‭ ‬لحافاته‭ ‬الخاطفة‭ ‬وانحرافه‭ ‬الجميل‭.‬

Name Meaning معنى‭ ‬الإسم
Beautiful‭, ‬elegant‭, ‬graceful ‬وفاتن ،‭ ‬وراقٍ،‭ ‬جميل

Category الفئة
Display type خطّ‭ ‬عرض‭

Arabic Style الطّراز‭ ‬العربيّ
Hybrid Naskh/Thuluth خطّ‭ ‬هجين‭ ‬النّسخ‭/‬الثّلث

Latin‭ ‬Style الطّراز‭ ‬اللّاتينيّ 
Modern Serif ‭ ‬خطّ‭ ‬سريف‭ ‬حديث

Since most documentation and references about the Arabic script stem from the calligraphic methodology, this article will tackle the problem of allocating typographic terms to Arabic type and typography.

بينما نجد معظم الوثائق والمراجع التي تتناول جذور الخط الطباعي العربي من ناحية المنهجية الطباعية، تعالج هذه المقالة مشاكل تحديد صفات الحرف والخط الطباعي العربي.

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The following typographic demonstrations compare the anatomy of Arabic type to that of Latin type. The diagrams show a contemporary Naskh / Sans Serif typeface, called 29LT Kaff  that comes in eight (8) weights designed by Pascal Zoghbi and Ian Party (SwissTypefaces) . It  was published in the Spring of 2015 at which time it became part of 29Letters commercial fonts library.

الاستدلال التالي يقارن تشريح الحرف الطباعي العربي بالحرف الطباعي اللاتيني. تظهر الرسوم البيانية خط النسخ المعاصر / الخالي من التذييل (Sans Serif) المسمى «كاف» ذو الثمانية أوزان المصمَّم من قِبل باسكال الزغبي وإيان بارتي. تم نشره في ربيع ٢٠١٥ في الوقت الذي أصبح فيه جزءاً من مكتبة ٢٩حرف للخطوط التجارية.

Latin type conventionally sits on a baseline, with five main vertical levels of reference: baseline, x-height, ascender, descender, and caps-height. By contrast, Arabic type is less constrained, with more invisible typographic levels at the type designer’s disposal. A humanistic typeface inspired by the cursive Naskh scripts, such as this one, may make use of up to twelve imaginary typographic levels, whereas a typeface based on a geometric Kufic script may require only four or five levels. This means that it is essential for Arabic type designers to possess expert knowledge of Arabic calligraphic styles and systems in order to be creative and to translate the calligraphic rules into typographic guidelines for their typefaces.

يجلس الخط الطباعي اللاتيني عادة على خط ارتكاز، بخمسة مستويات عمودية مرجعية: خط الارتكاز (Baseline)، ارتفاع الحرف إكس (x-height)، الصاعد (Ascender)، النازل (Descender)، خط ارتفاع الحرف الكبير (Caps-height). بالمقابل، فإن الحرف الطباعي العربي أكثر تحرراً، مع مستويات غير مرئية أكثر في خدمة المصمم. يمكن لخط إنساني كهذا الخط مستوحى من مخطوطات بخط النسخ، أن يستخدم حوالي إثني عشر مستوىً وهمياً، في حين يستخدم خط آخر مرتكز على الخط الكوفي فقط أربعة إلى خمسة مستويات. هذا يعني أنه على المصمم أن يمتلك المعرفة المحترفة لأساليب وأنظمة التخطيط العربي ليكون مبدعاً ويترجم قواعد التخطيط لخطوات توجيهية في الخط الطباعي لاستخدامها في انشاء الخط.

For each of the cursive Arabic calligraphic styles (Naskh, Thuluth, Diwani, etc.), the proportions of the letters are governed by several systems—dot, circle and similarity—which act as guides for Arabic type designers. There is no one set of typographic levels in Arabic type anatomy as there is in Latin type anatomy. Type designers decide on the number of levels needed for the typeface they are designing, and according to the calligraphic style that the typeface is based on.

في كل أسلوب تخطيط عربي (نسخ، ثلث، ديواني، إلخ..)، تتحكم عدة أنظمة بنسب الأحرف، النقطة، الدائرة والمشابهة، والتي تمثل الدليل لمصممي الخط العربي. هناك مجموعة واحدة من مستويات التخطيط الطباعي في تشريح الحرف الطباعي العربي كما في تشريح الخط الطباعي اللاتيني. يقرر مصممو الخطوط عدد المستويات التي يحتاجونها في الحرف الذين يصممونه استناداً على أسلوب التخطيط الذي يرتكزون عليه.

Instead of one mean-line—in Latin typefaces, the x-height—there may be several: tooth-, loop-, and eye-heights. Instead of a single ascender, there may be two, called the ‘Sky’. In place of a single descender, there may be two or three, called the ‘Earth’. In between the previously mentioned guidelines, there are two further invisible lines that define the baseline’s position and thickness.

عوضاً عن مستوى وحيد – في الحرف اللاتيني هو ارتفاع-س – يمكن أن يكون هناك العديد من المستويات: ارتفاع السن (Tooth-height)، ارتفاع الدورة (Loop-height)، ارتفاع العين (Eye-height)،   وعوضاً عن صاعد واحد، يمكن أن يكون هناك مستويان، يطلق عليهما اسم “السماء” (Sky). وبدل النازل الواحد، يمكن أن يكون هناك اثنان أو ثلاثة اسمهم “الأرض” (Earth). وبين المستويات المذكورة آنفاً، هناك مستويان إضافيان غير مرئيان يحددان موضع خط الارتكاز وسماكته.

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A summarised and edited version of this article was firstly published in Eye Magazine issue #90 within the “Beyond Latin: Type design panel” article published in June 2015. This brief article on Arabic type anatomy is the fruit of my experience from the past years in: 1. Designing Arabic fonts; 2. Lecturing about Arabic typography; 3. Discussing the Arabic script with calligraphers and colleagues; and 4. Reading and researching about Arabic calligraphy. Hopefully I will be able to publish a comprehensive detailed article or book on this topic and other Arabic typography topics in the near future.

هذه المقالة الموجزة عن تشريح الخط الطباعي العربي هي ثمرة خبرتي من السنوات الماضية في: ١ – تصميم الخطوط العربية؛ ٢ – المحاضرات في الخطوط الطباعية العربية؛  ٣- مناقشة الخطوط مع خطاطين وزملاء؛ ٤ – القراءة والأبحاث حول التخطيط العربي. على أمل أن استطيع نشر مقال أو كتاب مفصل وواضح حول هذا الموضوع وغيره من المواضيع التي تخص الخط الطباعي العربي في المستقبل القريب.

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Written in English by Pascal Zoghbi 

Generously translated to Arabic by Zein Noureddeen 

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“Bukra Extra Bold” is an Arabic display typeface for “Ibn Battuta Mall” in Dubai. The English slogans and ads in the mall were done uses the Latin font “Futura Extra Bold”. They asked for an Arabic font that has the same feel and sturdiness as “Futura Extra bold”.

Since Futura is a simplified geometric Sans Serif, I decided the base the Arabic companion on the Kufi script and try to simplify the letterforms as much as I can and make it young and fresh as Futura. The Arabic font had to work with the capitals of Futura Extra Bold, so I had to experiment with how much I can make the decsenders of the Arabic type short, the loop and tooth heights big and the pen stroke thick enough without clotting the counter spaces of the letterforms.

Bukra Eaxtra Bold typeset back to back with Futura Extra Bold CAPITALS.

29LT Bukra type system currently consists of 94 styles, 47 Standard styles and 47 Slanted styles ranging from Hairline to Black in Condensed, Semi Condensed, Normal, Semi Wide and Wide.

The styles in each width category are:

[1] Hairline, [2] Hairline Slanted, [3] Thin, [4] Thin Slanted, [5] Extra Light, [6] Extra Light Slanted, [7] Light, [8] Light Slanted, [9] Regular, [10] Slanted, [11] Medium, [12] Medium Slanted, [13] Semi Bold, [14] Semi Bold Slanted, [15] Bold, [16] Bold Slanted, [17] Extra Bold, [18] Extra Bold Slanted, [19] Black, and [20] Black Slanted. (p.s. The Semi Condensed doesn’t have Black and Black Slanted, and the Condensed doesn’t have Extra Bold, Extra Bold Slanted, Black, and Black Slanted)

All of the above styles make 29LT Bukra the biggest multilingual Arabic and Latin typeface to-date.

29LT Bukra Description:

Contemporary geometric letterforms drawn with extreme refinement and sleek structure that unveils the bold and clean 29LT Bukra typeface. Its modern simplistic form makes all of its typographic styles suitable for a wide range of design applications. Corporate identities benefit from the fonts’ clean and polished outlines; while strong headlines and slogans profits from the fonts’ crisp structure. In big size, it works well in display type applications, while in small size it can be applied for short content text. The light weights of the type family give the notion of elegance and refinement, while the heavy weights imply strength and seriousness. Furthermore, the condensed styles are narrow and tall while the wide styles are round and heavy. It’s a type family with endless visuals representations allowing it to be applied in an infinite number of graphical applications.

Bukra Standard is a type family created for maximum legibility and ease of use. The Arabic letterforms were designed based on the Abbasid & Modern Kufic styles with large open proportions and short ascenders and descenders cut to a minimum length. Whereas the Latin character set was designed based on the Geometric Sans Serif structures with a large main body height and minimalistic and original design aspects that lends the typeface a unique feel and a futuristic structure. After all, Bukra means ‘Tomorrow’.

Bukra Slanted fonts are categorized as what is known as “true Italics” in the sense that the glyphs were redrawn based on a new design approach and not just slanted from the Standard fonts. The Arabic Slanted is based on the Eastern Kufic style since the Arabic Standard is based on the Modern Kufic style. The Eastern Kufic style is written with a left incline in the pen and contains straight diagonal letterforms and cuts. Comparing the Standard and Slanted character set, most glyphs changed radically between the two sets while others just acquired a slant. The name “Slanted” was adopted instead of “Italic” for the inclined styles because in Arabic typography and calligraphy there is no such term as an italic style.

Straight and round structures define the Standard styles while diagonal and edgy structures outline the Slanted styles. Both answer the same design approach while being strictly distinctive from each other.

Like all of 29LT fonts, many elements bring the Arabic and Latin scripts together, whether it’s the design approach, or the use of open counters, the proportions, or the terminals, finials, weight and contrast. We created both scripts in synergy and allowed them to be inspired by each other and be inspired by them ourselves, as we are sure you will be as well.

29LT Bukra Story:

The story of Bukra started in 2007. Pascal Zoghbi was contacted by Dr. Huda AbiFares to collaborate with her on the creation of a new Arabic font for “Ibn Battuta Mall” in Dubai, UAE. The client was asking for a strong and bold Arabic font to echo Futura Extra Bold typeface. Since Future is a geometric sans serif font, Zoghbi started looking for inspiration into Arabic calligraphic styles that are structured and geometric within the Kufic realm. Eventually a black geometric font immerged with extremely small counters and heavy geometric black pen strokes. This design aspect achieved the desired feel and look the client was asking for and granted the mall a distinctive visual identity and a sharp voice. The font was used as the main display type on huge banners informing the visitors about the latest deals and slogans of the mall. Additionally, it was used for all print applications such as ads, posters, fliers alongside online visual graphics on their website.

After 5 year in 2012, 29Letters was launched as an independent digital type foundry and 29LT Bukra was one of the first published typeface. Zoghbi embarked on the development of the Arabic character set to cover Arabic, Farsi and Urdu scripts; while Swiss Typefaces, 29LT design partners, took on the challenge of creating a new open feel Latin companion. During this time, the type family grew from 1 to 5 weights and it covered all Middle Eastern, North African and European languages.

In 2017,5 years after the first release of 29LT Bukra typeface, 29LT took on the challenge of growing the type family from 5 to 10 weights and they expanded into 5 width categories, growing the type family from 5 to 47 styles. The development of technology with the additional support of the Arabic script in the past 5 years required a complete transformation of the old font files into newly developed ones using the latest type design software. The main character set was revised and updated to cover more languages, and a set of ligatures and stylistic sets were added to the Standard set. After the creation of the 10 new weights in the Normal Bukra set, the time came to think about what would be the best way to approach the Condensed and Wide versions of the type family. New design decisions were needed to guaranty a smooth transition between the 5 different width categories while keeping the same typographic characteristics across the type family. The letterforms in the condensed styles were drawn in a slim and elevated manner, as opposed to the letterforms in the wide styles which were drawn in a curved and plump manner. Eventually the type family grew from a basic standard set of weights into a unique type system covering different weights, widths and design variations granting the type family a huge array of design possibilities in graphic applications.

In addition to the expansion of the weight and width axes of the type family, the new fonts include advanced typographical support with features such as ligatures and stylistics sets inspired from calligraphy to improve the legibility of the fonts. The number of glyphs per font grew from 550+ to 1000+.

Once the Standard 47 styles were developed, another set of design decisions was needed in order to create the slanted sets for both the Arabic and the Latin. In order to make these decisions Zoghbi conducted a research about Arabic and Latin scripts to answer the design problems they faced. After several slanted design trials were conducted for both scripts, we opted for a hybrid Geometric Gothic solution for the Latin and an edgy hybrid Eastern & Modern Kufic for the Arabic. In result the Bukra type family grew from 47 to 94 styles.

1 to 5 to 47 to 94 over the past 10 years!

29LT Bukra Features:

Below are the set of features present in 29LT Bukra typeface in the Standard styles. The Slanted styles have the same features except for the stylistic sets:

1. Latin Character Set

Extended Latin Character Set covering an array of Western languages

2. Arabic Character Set

Extended Arabic Character Set covering Arabic, Farsi and Urdu languages

3. Vocalization

Arabic vocalization mark positioning

4. Ligatures

Ligatures inspired from calligraphy

5. Stylistic Set

Stylistic Sets to emphasis the scripts fluidity

6. Figures

Arabic, Indic, Farsi and Urdu Figures

Lining & Tabular Figures

Fractions

I will be giving a lecture at Notre Dame University on the 20th of November about the recent history of Arabic type and the type design process.

The long awaited ‘Typographic Matchmaking’ Book will be launched at a symposium and exhibition at Mediamatic in Amsterdam on the 24th of August 2007.

The following text is written by Huda Smitshuijzen AbiFarès:

The project began with the idea of creating Arabic type with a Dutch flavor in order to bring the high quality of Dutch type design to the rather underdeveloped Arabic design tradition. With the invention of movable type, Latin typography has separated itself from calligraphy in order to better accommodate the needs of mass reproduction. Despite its development into today’s independent design field, type still carries within its forms the calligraphic seeds, the movement of a hand tracing a mark with ink on a page. By contrast, the calligraphic heritage is far more apparent in Arabic type. So how can we possibly conceive of Arabic typefaces with a Dutch flavor? As odd as this statement may seem, there are some fundamental similarities in the design approach taken by Dutch and Arab designers when creating typefaces. The main link is that both rely on their respective calligraphic traditions for structural as well as inspirational guidance. Another less apparent link is the historical background behind the early Arabic printing types produced in Europe since the 16th century. Some of the most prominent scholars, punch cutters (type designers), and printers were of Dutch origin. This last point is the initial idea that spearheaded this ‘Typographic Matchmaking’ project. The idea germinated in the original intention of making an exhibition about the involvement of the Dutch with the production of Arabic type from the 16thC to this day. When the research was undertaken, it became evident that contemporary Dutch type designers did not have the same involvement and enthusiasm of their predecessors. After considering carefully the reasons behind this, reviving the Dutch involvement in the design and production of contemporary Arabic type became a parallel project—namely, the main ‘pre-exhibition’ pilot design experiment that is presented in this book.

Initiating this pilot project.
The Typographic Matchmaking project was first discussed with a number of Dutch designers during the ATypI conference in Prague in September of 2004, and developed accordingly into a project with a defined and practical design brief. The Khatt Foundation initiated the Typographic Matchmaking project, spearheaded and coordinated by Huda Smitshuijzen AbiFarès, in April 2005. Five renowned Dutch designers were invited and each was teamed-up with an established or upcoming Arab designer. The aim was to facilitate collaboration between the Dutch and Arab designers in order to design Arabic typefaces that can become members of one of the Dutch designers’ existing font families. The participating designers formed the following teams: Gerard Unger with Nadine Chahine, Fred Smeijers with Lara Assouad Khoury, Martin Majoor with Pascal Zoghbi, Lucas de Groot with Mouneer Al-Shaarani, and Peter Bilak with Tarek Atrissi. In order to create a smooth and productive collaboration, the designers involved were matched according to their aesthetic styles, their personalities, and/or experiences. The initial challenges of this project were slightly humbling. First, asking two type designers who have never worked together to design a typeface was highly unusual— usually type design is an extremely individual and solitary endeavor. Second, matching two designers from different cultural backgrounds (and in most cases) living in different countries posed other small complications; like traveling to meet face to face, or communicating remotely (through telephone and email). Third, the expertise of the selected designers within one team was diverse; ranging from highly advanced technical knowledge, to design experience, to mastery of the Arabic language and script. This latter condition created an interesting balance of expertise within each team and lead to productive inter-dependencies between the partners whereby each had new things to learn from this experimental project. The over-reaching goal of this project was to set an example and to propose working methods, standards, and conventions for creating professionally designed and produced Arabic fonts. The experiments, problems, and developments encountered during the research and design process of each team raised some questions (hopefully to be further investigated in later projects and by other designers), provided some solutions and demystified the design and production process of Arabic type. These issues will be discussed in detail in the later chapters dedicated to each project.

The goals of the project.
The main thrust of the project is to address the modernization of Arabic textfaces and to develop quality Arabic fonts that will on one hand set the benchmark for future developments in this field, and on the other create good matching fonts for existing Latin font families. The project aims to provide design solutions for legible Arabic fonts that answer the dual-script needs of contemporary design in the Arab world. As a first step, we identified the general problems of Arabic fonts available on the market today, and then defined them as follows:

• Lack of published simple and concise guidelines of how to design Arabic fonts.
• Lack of established and widely known design conventions (such as similarities and differences between various letterforms, standard test words and test sentences).
• Lack of information on issues of legibility of Arabic in various reading contexts.
• Lack of unified technical standards that are universally shared by different technology suppliers (software and computer systems).

These problems were discussed and battled with during the three-day workshop we conducted at Mediamatic in Amsterdam in January 2006, and was later carried on through the ongoing work of the designers and their sharing of information and experiences amongst themselves. By sharing with the readers our long and tedious process, we hope that lasting lessons for Arabic type design can be learned from this project. We aim to highlight the problems of Arabic type, set standards and conventions for designing modern Arabic fonts, and provide information as clearly and as in-depth as possible. We strive to provide guidelines and examples of well-crafted Arabic fonts that encourage well-informed and innovative attitudes to designing Arabic type. And finally we hope to initiate the creation of a platform for a young generation of Arab type designers.

Furthermore, we would like to repeat this experiment in the near future and use what we have learned from this pilot project to go further in our research and investigations. We are looking to invite a fresh round of designers and commission them to design an original dual-script (Latin and Arabic) typeface that will require designing both scripts at the same time—possibly also according to a slightly modified design brief. In addition to the practical concerns, the project aimed at creating possibilities for cultural exchange, for building bridges between the European and Arab cultures, and for stimulating an exchange of design expertise between designers from different backgrounds, and practicing in different cultures.

The design brief.
The main project brief is to create legible Arabic fonts that can accommodate the design needs of contemporary design in the Arab world. The brief was limited to creating book typefaces that can compliment the chosen Latin typefaces. Innovation and diversity in Arabic textfaces was a primary concern because book and publication design in the Arab world are far behind in terms of quality (partly because of lack of appropriate fonts). The design of an ever-growing number of modern bilingual magazines and publications is being set back aesthetically because of inadequate and poorly crafted Arabic fonts (modeled after antiquated and impractical calligraphic scripts).

Infusing fresh blood into this area was not only a good starting point, but also the best way to address the problem of balancing legibility with reading conventions in modern Arabic printed media. Each Dutch designer was asked to select one appropriate font from his existing typefaces, and then in collaboration with his Arab partner to design a matching Arabic version. The selection of the starting Latin fonts addressed diverse design applications and type design approaches, consequently creating a much-needed variety of contemporary Arabic typefaces. A list of design requirements was set as follows:
• The Arabic font and its Latin counterpart were to have the same visual size at the same point size.
• The Arabic fonts are to be designed in two weights; a regular or book weight for running text, and a bold weight for headings (excluding Italics which are not a common convention in Arabic typesetting).
• The Arabic fonts would have the same ‘look and feel’ as the Latin font, with similar design details like stem weight, color, letter contrast and stroke endings.
• The results should be truly bilingual fonts.
• The fonts should accommodate the Farsi as well as the Arabic languages in their character set.
• The fonts are to be professionally produced to work on commonly used Arabic DTP software.

The Typographic Matchmaking book.
This book is a documentation of the first Typographic Matchmaking project. It is conceived to address the specific educational (informational) goal of presenting the process behind researching and designing an Arabic typeface within the strict limitations of the design brief.

The idea is to study and explore what collaboration between two designers (from different design and cultural backgrounds) can lead to and what are the issues that surface from such a unique design experiment. The discussions and results from this project should provide some concrete observations about the differences and shared principles between these two seemingly opposite scripts (and cultures). The results will be discussed in light of what discoveries have been made, how successful was the end result in coming close to the original intention of the designers, and what has this experiment contributed to enriching each designer’s personal maturity and development. The learning experience of the designers involved in this project can also provide insight to other designers interested or involved in similar design projects. Judging from the way design is heading, the problems that design has to resolve in our multi-cultural societies will most likely increase and cross-cultural communication will become an essential part of everyday design practice for most. This documentation intends to go beyond the mere visual presentation of the final refined product (the matching Arabic fonts) in order to outline what will hopefully become lasting lessons in multi-cultural design collaborations. Nonetheless, we consider having a final product as important because it serves the purpose of setting a good model for the future of Arabic typeface design. Having well-crafted and well-designed Arabic fonts (which are much needed for improving the quality of design in the Arab world) is part and parcel of this publication, and a clear reflection of the noble goals of the Khatt Foundation.

This project has been made possible by the major and generous support of the Fonds BKVB.

1. BRIEF HISTORY OF THE TRADITIONAL ARABIC TYPE.
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1.1 The origin of the Arabic script goes back to the first alphabet created by the Phoenicians. The Phoenicians were living on the coastal areas of Lebanon, Palestine, and Syria. Since the Phoenicians were traders sailing throughout the Mediterranean, their alphabet influenced all Mediterranean cultures and nations. The fact that the Middle East was located at the center of the Ancient World, between East and West, also had played an essential role in the spread of the Phoenicians’ alphabet. That is why the Phoenician alphabet is the mother of both Latin and Arabic scripts.

In 1300 BC, the early Phoenician alphabet, consisting of 22 consonants without capitals letters and written from right to left, was born in the city of Byblos on the coast of Lebanon. In 1000 BC, the Aramaic alphabet originated from the Phoenician alphabet in Aram, Syria and Mesopotamia, which represented the language of the Arameans. In 100 BC, the Nabatean script was born in the city of Petra north of the Red Sea, in present-day Jordan and spread throughout the Middle Eeast. In 100 AD, the Syriac alphabet, with 22 letters, also developed from the Aramaic, was created in Mesopotamia. It was only during the middle of the first century that the early Arabic alphabet began to appear in Kufa, Iraq. The Old Kufi or Archaic Kufi consisted of about 17 letterforms without diacritic dots or accents. Afterwards, the diacritic dots and accents were added to help readers with pronunciation, and the set of Arabic letters rose to 29, including the Hamza. With the birth of Islam, the Qur’an became the driving force behind the unification of all Arabic scripts found in Arabia. One unified, well-structured Arabic script with 29 letters was developed for the writing of the holy scripts of the Qur’an in the seventh century AD. Primarily the Qur’an was written with the Quranic Kufi script and later it with the Quranic Naskh style. From its creation in the Arabian Peninsula, the Arabic alphabet spread to all of the Middle East, North Africa, and even as far as Spain due to Islamic conquests. Since Arabic was the language of the Qur’an hence the language of God, all the occupied nations were forced to use the Arabic language.

1.2 Several Arabic calligraphic styles developed in various Arabian cities, with different writing techniques and writing tools. The most known Arabic calligraphic styles are:

1.2.1.Kufi (Old Kufi and Ornamented Geometric Kufi): the name “Kufi” originated from the city Kufa in Iraq.
1.2.2.Thuluth: the name Thuluth” originated from the names of several bamboo sticks that were used as writing tools.
1.2.3.Diwani and Diwani Djeli: The “Diwan” style developed during the Ottoman Empire, and the name comes from the political documents called “Diwan” in Arabic.
1.2.4. Naskh: the Ottoman Empire also gave rise to the “Naskh” style; “Naskh” is named after the ‘naskh’ action when the scribes copied Arabic text.
1.2.5. Persian; named after the Persian language.
1.2.6. Ruqaa: the name originated from the leather “Ruqaa” that the script was written on.
1.2.7. Maghrébi: is a stylized Kufi script developed in Morocco.

Today, most of the text typefaces available are based on the Naskh or the Thuluth Style. The other styles like the Kufi, Diwani and Maghrébi are found in display typefaces.

During the industrial revolution in Europe and the invention of movable type, several Arabic typefaces were created in France, Italy, England, Germany, Spain and the Netherlands between the 16th century and 18th centuries. The first Turkish press using Arabic printing type was found in 1727 in Istanbul, and the first Middle-Eastern Arabic printing press was built in a Christian monastery in Mount Lebanon in 1733 where the first Arabic book was published in 1735.

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2. BRIEF ASPECTS OF ARABIC TYPE.
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2.1 The Arabic Alphabet consists of 29 consonants and 11 vocalization marks in the shape of accents. The structure of the alphabet has only 19 basic shapes. However, since the letters change their shape according to their position in the word—initial, medial, final, or isolated—then the set of glyphs will add up to 106: 23 letters have four alternative shapes, and 7 letters have two alternative shapes. If we add the two indispensable ligatures of Lam-Alef, then the number will be 108. Finally, since the Arabic alphabet is also used in some non-Arab languages, more alterations to the letter were introduced to represent all the additional non-Arabic phonetics that brings the number of glyphs up to 130. Moreover, the number of glyphs can further increase if we also count all kinds of combinations within the letters if the typeface needs to fully mimic the calligraphic handwritten Arabic script. So according to each typeface, the number of glyphs can start with 130 and end in the hundreds.

2.2 The following image shows the four developing layers of the Arabic script The first line shows only the basic shapes of the letters. The second line illustrates the added diacritic dots on some letters that require it. The third line adds the vocalization marks for better pronunciation. The final line shows a decorated sentence where some decorative elements were added to the script to make it more elegant or holy. Usually, in everyday text, only the diacritic dots and some vocalization marks will be added to the script. The decorative elements will only be added to display words or sentences.

The four typographic elements of the Arabic script are: 1. Basic letterforms; 2. Diacritic Dots; 3. Vocalization marks; 4. Decorative elements, without mentioning the numerals, punctuation marks, and symbols.

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3. THE MODERN HISTORY OF ARABIC TYPE FROM THE 30’S TILL PRESENT.
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IIn 1936 and 1938, the Academy of the Arabic Language in Cairo held a conference for the purpose of the standardization of non-Arabic phonemes due to translation from English, French, or other languages. The solution was to add some diacritic dots on some letters and give it the proper phoneme. In 1945, the Academy launched a worldwide competition to reform and simplify Arabic to make it easier to learn, read, and write it. Between 1947 and 1958, many proposals were submitted to the Academy, but none of them was accepted. Between 1955 and 1959, the Academy assessed the last batch of submitted projects and also rejected all of them. The committee then decided to limit the changes or simplification to three, basic typographic rules: 1. Standardization of additional Arabic letters that represent non-Arabic sounds; 2. Obligatory vocalization marks for educational books; 3. Reduction in the number of Arabic characters from 300 to 169, to only consist of the basic variation forms of the letter and some indispensable ligatures and letter connections.
It was during the post-World War II period when most Arab nations were becoming independent from European colonial powers and building their own infrastructure that the Academy of the Arabic Language began to reflect on the educational, social, and technological development in the Arab nations and the need for a new simplified Arabic script to fit with new type techniques. At this time, these new type techniques were essentially the typewriter and the typesetting machines with movable type.

The Academy categorized the projects into three groups:
1. Projects that broke all the characteristics of the Arabic script and used the Latin letters.
2. Projects that converted the vocalization forms of the vowels into extra letters.
3. Projects that proposed a single letterform for each letter, making detached Arabic characters to suit the typewriter and the requirements of movable type.

The following projects are the most interesting proposals:

3.1. The Unified Arabic ™ typeface by Nasri Khattar (1911-1998) of Lebanon was proposed in 1947 A dual American-Lebanese national, Mr. Khattar was an architect, type designer, inventor, painter, sculptor and poet, After finishing his architechural apprenticeship as a disciple with the great American architect of the 20th century, Frank Lloyd Wright, Mr. Khattar worked as an Arabic consultant to IBM in the fifties, and architect, Arabic calligrapher, and Arabist to Arab-American Oil Company (Aramco) in New York City, 1950-1957. During this time, he made innumerable calligraphic works for both Aramco and the Arabs. He received a Ford Foundation grant for the years 1958-1961 to promote his “Unified Arabic, UA” system. Unified Arabic is Mr. Khattar’s Arabic type system that simplifies the printing and teaching of Arabic, Urdu, Farsi, and other languages utilizing the Arabic alphabet.
As he continued to work on Unified Arabic, Mr. Khattar designed new Arabic typefaces, some of which are “Unified,” but also designed to automatically connect. He also practiced architecture, and lectured at the American University of Beirut.
In 1986, Reverend Dennis Hilgendorg and Dr. Ben Wood, Director of Educational Research at Columbia University, nominated Mr. Khattar for the Nobel Peace Prize for his life’s visionary achievements and their vast implications for the fields of linguistics, literacy, printing, computers, and telecommunications.

Four characteristics summarize this unique project:
1. A single glyph per letter and detached set type.
2. Each letter is uniquely different from the other and at the same time retaining the Arabic traditional form.
3. The counter forms are wide and open for higher legibility especially in small sizes.
4. The type was designed with a large loop: height (x-height) and low ascenders and descenders.

Today, his daughter, Camille Khattar Hedrick, continues to promote his work, especially his later typefaces that are designed to connect while, at the same time, applying the concept of Unified Arabic: one glyph per letter, yet connected, not detached.

3.2 The Latinizing Arabic by Yahya Bouteméne in 1952. The project consisted of constructing the Arabic letter from the Latin alphabet. This project also suggested that the type will be detached with Latin typographic structures like x-height, ascenders, descenders, and spacing and kerning to mention but a few. But this proposal broke all traditions of Arabic type and was purely Latinized which can never be accepted.

3.3 The Vocalization Marks as extra letters by Ali Al Gharim in 1952. The project suggested that each vocalization mark be drawn as additional letters to the Arabic script and be added within the writing.

3.4 Yakout type by Nahib Jaroudi from Linotype in 1956.Yakout was designed in a similar manner to Arabic typewriter fonts created during this period: it used a limited range of letterforms to represent the full Arabic character set. The resultant style of type design became known as “Simplified Arabic.”

The initial and medial glyphs of each letter were replaced with one glyph, and the final and isolated glyphs of each letter were replaced or merged into one glyph (except for a few letters like the “Ain” where all initial, medial, final, and isolated forms were kept since they are differently drawn). This enabled the character set to be reduced and made it more compatible with the Arabic typesetting machines typewriters of the time. The font was produced for hot-metal typesetting being specifically intended to function as newspaper text. With the dual intention of fitting the Arabic script onto a Linotype line-casting machine for setting type for rotary printing, and of maximizing keying speeds in creating copy for daily newspapers, much effort was concentrated on reducing the normal Arabic character set of over 100 characters.

The provenance can be seen from an interesting on-line article by Fiona Ross entitled “Non-Latin Type Design at Linotype”.

3.5 The ASV-CODAR (Arabe Standard Voyellé – Codage Arabe) by Lakhdar Ghazal from Morocco in 1958. This project met the same fate as all other proposals and was rejected by the Academy in Cairo. However, this was the only project that underwent development and production because it was adopted by the Moroccan government which encouraged the establishment of the Institut d’Etudes et de Recherches pour l’Arabisation in 1960. The aim of the typeface was to make the Arabic type easily usable for all modern media. Nowadays, this font is the only digitized typeface of all those submitted to the Academy thanks to Dr. Ghazal and the Moroccan government.

The reason why ASV-Codar was developed is that, unlike the previously mentioned proposals, it solved the technical problem of simplifying the script and at the same time respected the spirit of the Arabic script. Consequently, this project was a social and technological achievement.

The Characteristics of ASV-Codar are:
1. One drawn shape per basic letter set but which can at the same time accommodate a connecting or ending shape according to its position in the word. This solution saved the type from being detached by making the number of glyphs drawn to the basic regular letters.
2. Three kinds of ending tails that fit all letters. These ending tails are added to letters that needed them if they are positioned at the end of the word.
3. The vocalization marks are placed on the connecting glyph (Kashida) between the letters and not on, above, or below the letterforms. This solution was conceived so as not to draw each letter several times with different vocalization marks for each one.

3.6 The Lebanese Type by Saïd Akl in Lebanon in the 60s. Saïd Akl is a proud Lebanese linguist, poet, and philosopher. He is a true Lebanese person. He loves Lebanon and knows its history well. He considers the Lebanese the ancestors of the Phoenicians and that we must use the Latin alphabet since it is a direct descendant of the Phoenician alphabet and not the Arabic script which is full of problems and complicated. His idea was applied in the creation of the Lebanese Type that can be a universal type for all languages of the world and not only Arabic. Since Saïd Akl was not a type designer, he just took the typeface ‘Times’ (which is the most common Latin Serif on all computer platforms) and constructed his alphabet. Saïd Akl expressed his political and social thoughts about Lebanon with a new way of writing Lebanese. In this period of his life he was a very famous poet and philosopher throughout the Arab world. He wanted to express the idea that Lebanon is a nation that speaks the Arabic language butis not an Arab nation. That is why he made his new type based on the Latin script and not the Arabic although both scripts descended from the Phoenician alphabet. He wanted a Lebanon with less connection to the Arab Islamic world. He wanted a unique type and language for Lebanon.

You can also read an article about the topic on NOW Lebanon website.The Lebanese Type, Saïd Akl.

3.6.1 The Theory of the Lebanese Type:
True creation is by no means the fruit of chance, but rather the child of purpose. That is what Akl was unknowingly set to prove with a brand new revolutionary concept, the “Lebanese Type.” The idea originated in his youth when he wondered about the point of having such a complicated Arabic alphabet. It was first put into practice in the early 1930s. However, it was not until 1961 that it took its final shape.
Saïd Akl found it hard to choose a specific source of inspiration since he was changing the very concept of the alphabet. Its basis was that each letter had one and only one form and pronunciation, that is, each phoneme had only one physical representation. The ultimate aim was to simplify the multiple forms relating to a sound. Therefore, not only was he driven by the phonetic need, but also by sheer logic: to render the representation easier without altering the phoneme, and the “Lebanese Type” would be accessible to all. After all, he thought, didn’t it all take root with our ancestors, the Phoenicians and their prosperous city of Byblos? The Cadmus’ alphabet set sail from the shores of Lebanon to spread to the whole world. Hence, almost all the alphabets today are derived from the Phoenician except the Chinese and Japanese that still rely on cryptograms. Thus, we begin to get a rough answer to the question: How come the Latin alphabet is the ancestor of the “Lebanese Type,” and not the Phoenician? Is it not some kind of reason against its homeland? “Absolutely not,” said Akl, “for it is all about logic and simplicity of forms.” Moreover, for Akl, Latin was not the exclusive source, since he was also inspired by the Arabic alphabet and created some more characters from sheer reason to accommodate all known phonemes.

3.6.2 Characteristics of the Lebanese Type:
1. Avoidance of diacritic dots: The little dots under or above 12 Arabic letters were considered as defying all principles of logic and aesthetics, especially when compared to the Latin. Saïd Akl considered each character as the holder of a self-value that needs no additional shaping or refinement.
2. Avoidance of accents: Accents are far worse than the previous mentioned, for if some letters managed to break the bond of dots, they can never be set free from these indications that determine the grammatical function of Arabic words. Hence, doesn’t switching from accents to their graphic representation constitute a more suitable solution for Arabic?
3. Uniformity in the size of the letters: in Arabic, letters start above, on or below any given horizontal line. Furthermore, the width of each letter varies slightly, which leads to great difficulties in writing. Hence, the “Lebanese Type” found an elegant solution, which consists of only two closely shaped representations (upper and lowercase) for each letter.
4. Separated or detached letters: letter representation in Arabic differs given its position in the word. The new type separated them, thus giving each character its own personality and value. Uniqueness in the relation between shape and character seems absolutely necessary in order to avoid the chaos of too many forms of one letter.
5. One letter for each vowel and phoneme: it is obvious that, in the Lebanese Type,” there is no such thing as the double vowels sounds of Latin since its basic principles is based on the uniqueness of each character representing only one phoneme, that is, one and only one character for each phoneme.
6. Letters’ spirit as the Latin: as mentioned earlier, Saïd Akl’s main source of inspiration was the Latin alphabet. Thus, it stands to reason that most of the typeface looks like Latin even in the letters that Saïd invented as it turned out that their shapes were the most obedient to the rule of harmony.

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From the 1960s until the late 1980s, the transition from analog to digital, due to the computer’s limitations at that time, the Arabic script was constantly faced with problems like the connections of the letters, the limited character set and the right to left direction of writing. It was not the concept of the emerging computer programming technology as such that caused the problems. Certainly there were technical limitations, mainly related to the display and more acutely to printing technology. But the real problem was – and is – the lack of knowledge of, curiosity about, and to some extent even love for the Arabic writing system in the Western world and among Western-trained Arabs – according to Thomas Milo of DecoType.

That is why Arabic was – and is – always mainly discussed in terms of the need for simplification. Paradoxically, from the mid-1990s to our present day, computer technology has evolved in a way to find solutions for all the problems. There is the extended Arabic character set of Unicode and the invention of smart font technology like OpenType Font supporting Arabic type on all major computer platforms (Mac OSX, Windows NT, and later) that handle most of the problems.

Unicode extends the coverage of Arabic to include Persian, Urdu – in fact, theoretically, all other Arabic-based languages. A great advantage of Unicode is that it blends Arabic seamlessly into texts typeset in any other script – Latin, Russian, Chinese, you name it.

However, Unicode only defines abstract, nominal letters – no more. It does not define typographic technology, let alone solve typographic problems. Therefore, OpenType technology was developed to deal with the typographical tsunami caused by Unicode and global computing in general. Improved facilities for Arabic were a by-product, not a design goal.

3.7 DecoType (DT), Thomas Milo, The Netherlands in 1985. Before the invention of OpenType, some companies pioneered solutions for Arabic in the context of global computing and Unicode. The company DecoType (DT) represented by Thomas Milo is an example: he and his team (including Peter Somers and Mirjam Somers) invented the Arabic Calligraphic Engine ACE (around 1985). In fact, ACE controlled the first Smart Font, based on the traditional ruqah style.

While the early Windows font technology was too primitive in the early ‘90’s to deal with Arabic typesetting, an interim solution was found. At the request of Microsoft a much simplified and compromised Naskh and Thuluth were developed for use with its fixed font tables, since MS could not – yet – cope with complex Arabic. These fonts were NOT driven by ACE. The P in DTP was a pun to mark this low-quality, non-ACE derivative. DTP Naskh and Thuluth were made around 1992-3.

Almost simultaneously Microsoft Middle East Product Development Department (MEPD) asked DecoType to create ACE-based OLE-servers for DT Ruqah and DT Naskh. This all happened well before the now ubiquitous OpenType was even conceived (Microsoft as a company wasn’t yet connected to the internet in these days!). DecoType’s ACE technology became the de facto proof of concept for smart font technology, paving the way for what was to become OpenType.

Real ACE fonts were marketed as DT OLE-servers (now Tasmeem fonts), NON-ACE fonts by DecoType are marketed as DTP fonts (PostScript, TrueType, OpenType). ACE was developed to mimic existing high-end Arabic typography – which in turn is, of course, deeply rooted in the calligraphic tradition.

Thomas Milo served as an Arabic speaking Officer in a Dutch army unit detached to UNIFIL in Southern Lebanon. His background is in Slavic and Turkic linguistics, plus Arabic in a supporting role. Before and after Lebanon he travelled extensively in Eastern Europe and the Middle East.

For some impressions of his stint with UNIFIL, here’s an interview and literature:
Thomas Milo on UNIFIL
Vredesmacht in Libanon

After his return from the Lebanon he discovered the technical problems in producing accurate Arabic typography. As a linguistic scholar, he decided to build his own technology for his Arabic typesetting. He wanted to create the Arabic that he loved and not the badly digitized Arabic that is found in the market. Gradually it dawned on him that only a solid understanding of Arabic calligraphy provides the key to the solution. After an initial failure with naskh script that he found too dazzling and complex, he analysed ruqah instead. Work on naskh started 10 years later and took another 10 years to complete.

With hindsight one can conclude that the project of his team was the first and for a long time the only one to try and document the reality of Arabic as it has functioned over the centuries.

The illustration shows the structural difference between ACE-driven (Tasmeem) and OT Table-driven DTP Naskh. The Tasmeem examples follow the traditional structure, the DTP examples are low-grade hybrids – neither traditional nor innovative.

In 2007 DecoType with association with Winsoft launched Tasmeem.

According to the WinSoft-DecoType sales brochures, the Tasmeem concept is a dream come true. It integrates traditional calligraphy with modern typefaces, giving everybody the freedom they want. It makes Adobe InDesign Middle Eastern Version the most comprehensive Arabic design tool in the industry. Tasmeem provides designers and publishers of Arabic books the indispensable high-quality typesetting for literary and academic productions. Tasmeem offers professional tools to shape prose, poetry, traditional and educational texts…

Continue reading at the Winsoft website or at the “Calligraphy written by hand or set on the computer” post on my blog. I addition, this month’s cover story in Saudi Aramco World magazine is dedicated to Tasmeem.

3.8 The Simplified Arabic Type by Mourad Boutros in The United Kingdom in 1993. Boutros also focused on the idea that Arabic must embark on the process of becoming detached like the journey the Latin script took hundreds of years before. He made a font based on the Naskh structure with two phases. The first phase will be used firstly in the Arab nations for several years until the people are familiar with it, and afterwards they will start using phase two where the letters are completely detached. Phase one is also based on one shape per letter but the letters touch each other on the baseline with close tracking. Phase two is simply making the tracking wider, hence the letters will be detached.

What is interesting about Mourad’s proposal is that it took into account a transitional phase. So he was truly trying to solve a social problem without ignoring the technical aspect of making Arabic easier to handle by the computer and software which are initially built only for the Latin script. He wanted to make Arabic detached and simple but at the same time he planned for the acceptance of the type by the people.

3.9 The Mutamathil Type by Saad Abulhab in The United States of America in 1999. Saad is the latest person to try to develop detached Arabic type in recent years. He also focused on the idea that the type must be detached but what he newly introduced is a bi-directional type suggesting that Arabic can be written from right to left as usual and (if necessary) can be also written and read from left to right as the Latin alphabet. So his approach will not only solve the problem of connected letters and changing letterforms according to their position, but also the problem of having special Arabic software or plug-in that enables the writing from right to left. The questions remain as to the limit of simplification and if the Arabic people would accept the font and are able to read it.. The letters in the bi-directional “Mutamathil Mutlaq” type are symmetrical and geometric with shapes that are mirrored in the middle of the letter, which makes the letters look so stiff and rigid with respect to the flowing cursive aspect of the Arabic script.

Personally, I think that the idea behind the font is intelligent, but the design of the letters is not good at all. The letters are constructed out of geometric shapes to such an extent that it made them lose all their Arabic characteristics. The problem is that Saad only solved the technical issue of the Arabic script, but completely destroyed the historical and aesthetical value of Arabic.

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4. WHAT IS THE FUTURE OF ARABIC TYPEFACES?
The following question was asked in the TypoGraphic Beirut 2005 conference that took place in April in the Lebanese American University.
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There are three main directions in the Arabic type design world today. The first direction is represented by Arabic type designers and typographers who are working on simplifying the Arabic script and making it detached. The second direction is backed up by conservative traditional Arabic type designers who state that the Arabic does not need to be simplified any more since the technology is now well developed to accommodate all the needs and problems of Arabic calligraphic typefaces. The third direction is represented by several contemporary Arabic type designers whose work deals with making modern Arabic typefaces that are legible and friendly to everyday applications or to the needs of their clients. An example of the first group is Saad Abulhab, the second group is Thomas Milo, and the third group includes several independent Arabic type designers, such aslike Nadine Chahine, Titus Nemeth, Tim Holloway, Abbar Yassar, Ihsan Al-Hammouri, Mohamed Hacen, as well as myself. We are creating new, modern Arabic typefaces. Names and links of known independent Arabic type designers and Arabic type foundries are listed in the section below.

Whatever the direction or the intentions behind each new Arabic typeface, there is a huge demand for new Arabic fonts. New Arabic fonts are needed for:
4.1. Everyday Arabic graphic design and typography projects.
4.2. Corporate Arabic fonts for Arabic established companies or newspapers.
4.3. Arabic companion fonts for existing Latin fonts.

Professional graphic designers and students are always asking for new Arabic fonts. Before the launch of Adobe InDesign ME versions and the development of the OpenType Arabic fonts, most of Arabic typographers used Quark AXt and were limited to AXt Arabic fonts. Until now, AXt fonts are the most used even though the users of Quark AXt are diminishing. The reason for this is there are not so many new OpenType Arabic fonts for them to use instead of AXt fonts. Over the last few years, the awareness about Arabic type and the need for new fonts was translated in the rise of Arabic Type Foundries and young, contemporary independent Arabic type designers. Over the past three years, Nadine Chahine, Titus Nemeth, and I have graduated with Masters in Type Design and are specialized in Arabic type. The three of us now are working and developing new Arabic fonts that are starting to appear in the market place.

The Khatt Foundation ‘Typographic Matchmaking’ project is an example about the need for Arabic type companions for existing Latin typefaces (you can read more about the Typographic Matchmaking project and the Khatt foundation in the ‘Typographic Matchmaking: Arabic type with a Dutch flavor.’ post on my blog or on the Khatt Foundation website). This is due to the fact that many publications in the Arabic nations are bi-lingual or tri-lingual (Arabic, English and french). Another reasons is that most of the international companies how are opening new branches in any of the Arab nations need an Arabic corporate font that will work with their own Latin corporate font.

Other important typographic events that contributed to the growing awareness of Arabic type and calligraphy are: Typo.Graphic.Beirut conference, The Kitabat conference, The Linotype’s First Arabic Type Competition, and Khatt Kufi & Kaffiya symposium.

Corporate Arabic fonts are also in need for new Arabic companies whichare now building their new identities. Some examples are banks, communication companies, organization, and non-profits. Furthermore, all Arabic newspapers at the present time are asking for corporate fonts, renewing their layouts and asking for new, modern Arabic fonts, and new rising Arabic newspapers are creating their young fresh identities with new contemporary corporate Arabic fonts.

At present, the Arabic type industry is booming and it will stay this way for several years longer. Awareness about Arabic type is growing in the Arab nations and the number of professional Arabic type designers is also growing.

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5. INDEPENDENT ARABIC TYPE DESIGNERS AND ARABIC TYPE FOUNDRIES.
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Traditional established Arabic type foundries:
Boutros (Mourad Boutros)
Sakkal (Mamoun Sakkal)
AvantType (Habib Khoury)
DecoType (Thomas Milo,Mirjam Somers & Peter Somers)
Layout (AXt Quark).
GraphEast

New Contemporary Arabic Type Designers:
Abbar Yazzar (Syria)
Mohamed Hacen (Mauritania)
Nadine Chahine (Lebanon)
Pascal Zoghbi (Lebanon)
Titus Nemeth (Austria)

Non-Arab Arabic Type Designers & Type Foundries that have created Arabic fonts:
Tim Hollaway, Fiona Ross (UK) and John Hudson (Canada)
Kris Holmes(USA) & Chuck Bigelow.
Thomas Milo, Mirjam Somers & Peter Somers (The Netherlands)
Titus Nemeth (Austria)
ParaType (Russia)

International Type Foundries that also develop Arabic fonts beside Latin fonts:
Linotype
Monotype
Adobe
ParaType (Russia)

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Bibliography, References & Illustrations Credits:
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1. Huda Smitshuijzen AbiFarès, Arabic Typography, Saqi Books 2001.

2. Ghan Alani, Initiation Calligraphie Arabe, Aditions Fleurus 2001.

3. Abdelkebir Khatibi, Mohammed Sijelmassi, The Splendour of Islamic Calligraphy, Thames & Hudson 2001.

4. Hassan Massoudy, Calligraphie Arabe Vivante, Flammarion 1999.

5. Arabic Script and Typography, a brief historical overview, by Thomas Milo (in Language Culture Type, international type design in the age of Unicode, ed. John D. Berry, ATypI-Graphis 2002)John D.

6. Arabic for Designers, Mourad Boutros, Mark Batty Publisher 2006.

7. Saad AbulhabThe Mutamathil Type Style, Visible Language 38.3, 2004.

8. Paul Khera, Has Yassar Abbar developed the Arab world’s answer to Univers?, Eye Magazine 50, 2003.

9. Hans Jürg Hunziker, untitle booklet about his arabic type work in Morocco, Switzerland.

10. Rafic Rouhana, Revolution of the Letter with Saiid Akl, Lebanese university, Lebanon 1996.

11. Kamal Al-Baba, Rouh al-khatt al-arabi.

12. http://www.unifiedarabicalphabet.com/

13. http://www.arabetics.com/

14. http://www.decotype.com/

15. http://www.winsoft.eu/

16. http://www.arabicfonts.com/

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Pascal Zoghbi , May 2007.
This article is part of my dissertation that i have wrote during my Master of Design studies at Type]Media 05/06, KABK, The Netherlands.
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The following article is a brief description of systems and guidelines used in Arabic calligraphy and Arabic type design field to achieve proportional and harmonious Arabic letters. This article is intended for typography students and beginners in Arabic type design.

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1. Arabic Calligraphy:

Traditional Arabic Calligraphy schools base their teachings on three writing systems created by the Arabic calligrapher “Ibn Muqlah” in the ninth century. The three systems are: 1.Nizam Al-Dairah, 2.Nizam Al-Nuqat and 3.Nizam Al-Tashabuh.

Nizam Al-Dairah:

Nizam Al-Nuqat:

In brief, Nizam Al Dairah (system of the circle) bases all the letterforms on a circle. The diameter of the circle is determent from the height of the letter “Alef”. Nizam Al-Nuqat (system of the dots) bases the proportions of the letters on dot counts. The rhombic dot is determent from the thickness of the calligraphic pen used, whereas the dot count of each letter is dependent on the Arabic calligraphic style chosen. Refer to the picture below.

Nizam Al-Nuqat with respect to the “alif” of each Calligraphic Style:

The Thuluth style has the longest “alef” while the Ruqâa and Persian styles have the shortest “alef”. Both Nizam Al-Dairah and Nizam Al-Nuqat initiate from the height of the “alef” and the Arabic calligraphic style, then all the other letters and drawn accordingly.

Nizam Al-Nuqat in the Thuluth Style:

The third system, Nizam Al-Tashabuh (system of similarity), is based on similar pen strokes used in several letters. For example, the “seen.final” and “sad.final” share the same ending stroke, the “waw.isol” and “qaf.isol” share the same starting loop or eye, the “ain.isol” and “hah.isol” share the same ending stroke and so forth for all the letters

Nizam Al-Tashabuh:

Usually Nizam Al-Nuqat is the most referred to writing system. Arabic Calligraphy students write several calligraphic exercises based on the Nizam Al-Nuqat for the most common Arabic calligraphic styles (1.Kufi, 2.Naskh, 3.Thuluth, 4.Diwani, 5.Persan, 6.Riqâa, 7.Maghrébi) before they become good Arabic calligraphers. Below is an example of an exercise.

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2. Arabic Type Design:

When it comes to type designing the three calligraphic writing systems are transformed into guidelines and components. Upon starting an Arabic typeface design, the first step to do is to choose a calligraphic style to refer to while drawing the letters. The choice of calligraphic style is directly depended on the purpose and use of the typeface. For example, most text Arabic typeface are based on the “Naskh” style, while most display Arabic typefaces are based on “Kufi” or “Diwani”. Whether the drawn typeface is modern or traditional; it must always refer to a certain calligraphic style if it needs to be professionally done. After choosing the calligraphic style, the guidelines fo the typefaces need to be determent. The guidelines are: 1.baseline stroke thickness (which is also linked to the overall stroke thickness), 2. the loop height/s, 3. the tooth height/s, 4. the ascender height/s and the descender height/s. There is no x-height since there is no “x” in the Arabic alphabet. Instead of one x-height in Latin typefaces, there is loop and tooth height/s in Arabic typefaces. The Arabic letters do not all have the same heights as Latin letters. Below is two examples of new Arabic typefaces that are part of the “Typographic Matchmaking 01“ project.

Sada Guidlines:

TheMixArab Guidlines:

The first is SADA and the second is TheMixArab. Sada is based on the Naskh style while TheMixArab is based on the Kufi Style. Notice the guidelines in each typeface. Since Sada is based on the Naskh style, the letters are more flowing and they do not all have the same heights. In Sada there is two tooth heights, two loop heights, one ascender height and two descender heights. On the contrary, TheMixArab has one guideline used for loop height and tooth height, one descender and one ascender. Since the Kufi style is more geometric, TheMixArab does not need as much guidelines as Sada. The Naskh based typeface is more calligraphic then a Kufi based typeface and hence needs more guidelines to make all the letterforms harmonious. So depending on the Arabic typeface designed and the purpose of its design, the guidelines will be decided on by the type designer. There isn’t one rule that fits all Arabic typefaces as in the Latin typefaces. The guidelines in Arabic type designing replace both “Nizam Al Dairah” and “Nizam Al-Nuqat” in calligraphy. The third writing system “Nizam Al-Tashabuh” is replaced by components. Components in type designing are pen strokes that are used to create several letters. Examples of letters that use components are the same as the ones listed in “Nizam Al-Tashabuh” previously. In the Arabic alphabet there is 17 basic pen strokes that build up the whole alphabet. Take a look of the Fontlab file bellow.

All the pink colored glyphs are drawn and become components for all the other glyphs that are white. All the white glyphs are composed from components.

The balance and harmony of the whole typeface start from the mentioned main three points.
1. Choice of an Arabic calligraphic style, 2. Creating the guidlines and 3. drawing the basic components for the whole typeface.

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3. Testing words and sentences to achieve proportionality:
Testing words and sentences are drawn at the beginning of an Arabic type design project. The testing words are used to achieve proportionally in the glyphs drawn before embarking on all the glyphs of the typeface. It is wise to spend some time at the launch of an Arabic type design project on test words then to move fast on drawing the entire letters and then notice that the proportionality between them is not working. Testing words are like the corner stone for a typeface. Once it is well drawn, the creation of the remaining glyphs moves smoothly. Below is two examples of Arabic testing sentences written with Sada and then with TheMixArab.

The first test sentence I made with my typography students at AUB. It is “ houm wa tarabishahunna raqasou al-dabka”. The second is taken from Huda AbiFarès book “Arabic Typography”. It is “hiya qatou’ al mash’aladan”. Unlike Latin, there are no standard testing words or pangrams for the Arabic script. A pangram is a testing sentence that contains all the letters of the alphabet. For the Latin we have “handgloves” & “hambourgefontsiv” as testing words. “The quick brown fox jumps over a lazy dog” is the most famous English pangram. Since Latin is detached, it is easy to create pangrams for it, but when it comes to the Arabic script, it is more difficult and actually impossible to have all the Arabic letters and there different shapes according to their position in the words in one sentence. That is why there is no standard testing words or pangrams for Arabic. Each Arabic type designers creates his/her own words and sentences according to the type project. What is important in all the testing words is that they should have letters with ascenders (“alef”, “kaf”,”tah”), descenders (“reh” “noon”, “hah”, “ain”), eyes (“waw”), loops (“feh”) and teeth (“seen”, “teh”) for the Arabic script; ascender (“h”,”d”), descender (“p”,”g”), and several main letters for the x-heigth (“n”, “a”, “e”, “o” and others) for the Latin script.

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Pascal Zoghbi 17 August, 2007.