The award-winning design studio, 29Letters (29LT), is pleased to announce that we have completely redesigned our website to give font lovers a vastly improved user experience.

Our new, bilingual Arabic and English responsive website showcases 29LT fonts with rich, vibrant colors and photographs. The site features an interactive type tool that lets you visualize the Arabic and Latin fonts of your choice in selected design project, side by side with its pure typographic form. As you click through the 29LT fonts, you can display each one at the size you need and in the language you prefer.

From the Fonts Catalogue, we invite you to “type your text” so that you can match and compare several fonts of a specific typeface within its respective page.

Once you are in a specific typeface page, you can preview and try all weights present in the type family; read about the font specs and features; know more about the type designers behind the fonts; and finally view the fonts is use by our esteemed clients.

The simple Cart takes you through the selection and purchase process of the fonts in a seamless manner. 29Letters offers its clients a multi-purpose font license in all formats (OTF, TTF, WOFF, EOT) covering various usages and applications such as Print, Web, App, Publishing, Broadcast and any other media.

ONE-TIME CHARGE

NO MONTHLY FEES

LIFELONG LICENSE

NO BANDWIDTH RESTRICTIONS

NO LIMIT ON WEBSITE VISITORS

In the Custom Fonts section, you can read about our type design services and browse through our showcased bespoke typeface and fonts done previously by 29LT team.

You can also access and fill out the 29LT Custom Typeface Order Form and we will get back to you with our quotation and design services options within 24 hours.

In the Design Projects section, you can browse though the graphic design and typography projects we have undertaken in the past years. You can also contact us through the 29LT Design Project Order Form if you need to hire us for a design project.

Finally, registering on the site will give you access to our trial fonts, which are the basic set at Regular weight.

Download and Discover 29LT Fonts.

Name Meaning معنى الإسم

Strong, robust, bold قويّ، وصلب، وجريء 

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Category الفئة

Text and display type خطّ عرض ومحتوى 

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Arabic Style الطّراز العربيّ

Alnasikh Massari نسخ مسطري 

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Latin Style الطّراز اللّاتينيّ

Sans Serif خطّ سان سريف 

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Weights لأوزان

Thin, Ultra Light, Light, Regular, Medium, Semi Bold, Bold and Black

رفيع، وخفيف جدًا، وخفيف، وعاديّ، ومتوسّط، وشبه داكن، وداكن، وأسود

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Scripts/Languages الخطوط/اللّغات

Arabic and Latin scripts covering the Arabic, Persian, Urdu and Western European languages

خطوط عربيّة ولاتينيّة تناسب اللّغات العربيّة، والفارسيّة، والأردية والأوروبيّة الغربيّة 

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Features المواصفات

Arabic Ligatures and a stylistic set for elongated elegant letters endings

حروف عربيّة مدمجة ومجموعة أسلوبيّة لنهايات حروف ممدودة راقية 

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Number of Glyphs عدد الرموز

1200+

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مصمّمو الحروف Type Designers

Pascal Zoghbi and Khajag Apelian باسكال زغبي وخاجاك أبيليان 

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The Story of 29LT Zarid

The story of 29LT Zarid starts back in 2007 when the daily Dubai newspaper “Emirates Today” approached 29Letters to create and develop a new Arabic typeface for headlining and titling for their updated tabloid. The newspaper requested a modern and crisp font that would appeal to their newly targeted younger readers as well as to be agreeable to their existing readers who were used to Naskh Mastari traditional fonts. A black display font was created covering the Arabic language for the newspaper. The font created back then, named “Imarat Headlines,” was an Arabic display font exclusively used by the newspaper from 2007 to 2014 when it was replaced by another typeface. For more than seven years, “Imarat Headlines” gave a unique image to “Emirates Today” before competing newspapers started adopting the same look and feel by producing similar alternates of it.

In 2014, 29LT started developing 29LT Zarid based on the “Imarat Headlines” font. The Arabic black letters got a contemporary design uplift by Pascal Zoghbi who also handled the development of the extended character set covering Farsi and Urdu languages. Additionally, a broad set of ligatures and stylistic sets were added to the font to give Zarid a strong calligraphic aspect while retaining its modern spirit.

After the fully extended Arabic character set was completed for the black weight, in 2015 Zoghbi approached the designer and colleague, Khajag Apelian, for the creation and development of the Latin counterpart of Zarid. The Arabic got revised while the Latin was in creation and refinements were undertaken on both scripts to make them come as close together as possible. A strong wedge serif Latin echoed a sturdy Arabic character set stemming from a thoughtful and bold attitude from both designers. From just a black weight, Zarid evolved into eight (8) weights (Thin, Ultra Light, Light, Regular, Medium, Semi Bold, Bold and Black) over a work frame of one year.

It is hard to say how much time 29LT Zarid took for the completion of its present type-family status. It has been eight (8) years since its inception as “Imarat Headlines” font in 2007; two (2) years from the revamping of the black weight in 2014 by Zoghbi; and one (1) year since the joint efforts of both designers, Apelian and Zoghbi, in 2015 for the realization of the whole type family in eight (8) weights covering all Middle Eastern, North African, Eastern European, Central European, Western European, North and South American languages.

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Description of 29LT Zarid

29LT Zarid letterforms are drawn with extreme refinement and varying contrast between the light and heavy weights of the type-family. The letters in the light weights (Thin, Ultra Light, Light and Regular) are drawn in low contrast and smooth curves, while the letters in the heavy weights (Medium, Semi Bold, Bold and Black) are drawn in high contrast with crisp cuts and sharp pen strokes. The typeface is suitable for a vast array of literature and educational publications besides branding and design projects. 29LT Zarid is a combination of an Arabic Naskh Mastari accompanied with a unique serif Latin counterpart that makes it reliable for both content and display text.

رسم زين بقلم عالي التباين وبحرفية راقية وشديدة ما يعطيه اسلوبا خاصا ومعاصرا. إن حدود الأحرف المصقولة لهذا الخط تجعله مناسبا لإظهار الثقافة الرفيعة التي تتطلبها الماركات والمشاريع الراقية. لقد صمّم كل حرف بطريقة تضمن الحفاظ على ضربات القلم الرفيعة كما السميكة كما هي في فن الخط. هذا التناقض في سماكة الخط استخدم مع زوايا حادّة وحدود بارزة لإضفاء طابع معاصر.

It retains a balance between calligraphic angular cuts and unadorned construction. The contrast in the letters was coupled with strong cuts and edges to give the font it vigorous attitude. The letterforms are inspired by calligraphic makeup but drawn with a modern-day feel. The Arabic ligatures and elongated stylistic sets give the typeface more calligraphic characteristics. These were meant to provide the script’s robustness, and robust is, after all, what Zarid means.

بوحي من فن المخطوطة، سكبت الأحرف الجديدة بإنسجام تامّ في أشكالها، لكنها رسمت بحرية خط اليد. الهابطات المشكّلة بضربة قلم مفتوحة في بعض الأحرف، بدل ان تعود لتنغلق على الحرف ذاته، بالاضافة الى اشكال الدوائر في أحرف اخرى، هي جميعها ابداعات جديدة الهدف منها التأكيد على الهوية الفنية المخطوطية لهذا الخط ما يزيد من أناقته، وهذا هو بالضبط ما أردنا خط زين أن يعني، أنيق.

The design approach, with open counters, the terminals and finials, and the weight and contrast, are all elements that bring the Arabic and Latin scripts together: No surprise there as both scripts were created in synergy and were inspired from each other simultaneously.

لقد ولد النصّان العربي واللاتيني بشكل متزامن. فالعناصر التي تجمعهما معا كمقاربة التصميم بذاته، والفراغات المفتوحة في الاحرف ونِسَبها، التيجان والنهايات، والاوزان والتباين، استوحياها من بعضهما البعض.

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29LT Zarid Features

The RTA Dubai bespoke multilingual typeface is composed of a distinct contemporary Naskh style Arabic accompanied by a humanistic and symmetric Sans Serif Latin. It is a font family that was created with unique design characteristics while putting legibility first. The typeface was designed to function perfectly in all transportation systems and communication mediums of RTA Dubai. With its open spirit and clear outlines, the typeface is easy to spot and read on road signs and all kinds of transportation vehicles. It is also unique and fully legible on RTA website, RTA application and on all of RTA social media platforms.

إنّ الخطّ الطباعيّ المتعدد اللغات المصمَّم خصّيصاً لهيئة الطرق والمواصلات بدبيّ، هو عبارةٌ ــ في شكله العربيّ ــ عن نوعٍ حديثٍ وفريدٍ من خطّ النسخ العربيّ، يرافقه خطّ لاتيني غير مذيّل، متماثلٌ وأقرب ما يكون للخطّ الانسيابي. هو نمطٌ من عائلةٍ من الخطوط ذات مواصفاتٍ فريدة في التصميم، ابتُكِرت مع تقديم اعتبارسهولة القراءة على غيره. لقد أوجِدَ هذا الخطّ ليعمل بصورةٍ مثاليةٍ في جميع أنظمة النقل ووسائط التواصل التابعة لهيئة الطرق والمواصلات في دبيّ. وبفضل ما يعكسه هذا الخطّ من روحٍ منفتحةٍ ووضوحٍ في المعالم، فإنّ النظر يلتقطه بيُسر، كما تسهل قراءته على إشارات الطرق وكلّ أنواع مركبات النقل. وهو كذلك فريدٌ ومقروءٌ بشكلٍ ممتازٍ على الموقع الإلكترونيّ لهيئة الطرق والمواصلات، وعلى التطبيق التابع لهيئة الطرق والمواصلات، كما على جميع وسائل التواصل الاجتماعيّ التابعة لهذه الهيئة

The typeface purpose is to give a modern feel and look to RTA’s signage and visual communication systems. It truthfully reflects the highest tech transportation platforms that are being made available to Dubai commuters nowadays. RTA Dubai covers: Dubai Metro, Dubai Tram, Dubai Bus, Dubai Taxi, Dubai Water Bus, Dubai Car, Dubai Water Taxi, Dubai Ferry, and Dubai Abra.

كان الهدف من خلق هذا الخطّ إضفاء طابعٍ ومظهرٍ حديثَين على أنظمة الإشارات والتواصل المرئيّ لدى هيئة الطرق والمواصلات. وهو يعكس صورةً صادقةً لما توفّره الهيئة للركّاب من التقنيات الأكثر تقدّماً في وسائل النقل. وتشمل هيئة الطرق والمواصلات في دبيّ: مترو دبيّ، وترامواي دبيّ، وباص دبيّ، وباص دبيّ المائيّ، وسيارة دبيّ، وتاكسي دبيّ المائيّ، ومعدّية دبيّ، وعبّارة دبيّ

The type family is composed of 4 weights (Light, Regular, Bold & Black) covering both Arabic and English languages. It contains an extended set of ligatures to strengthen readability. Pascal Zoghbi, from 29LT, designed the Arabic and Swiss Typefaces crafted the Latin. The project was set in collaboration with the branding agency Wolff Olins that was behind the creation of the new brand identity of RTA Dubai.

تتألّف عائلة الخطوط هذه من أوزانٍ أربعة (خفيف وعاديّ وعريض وأسود) في كلا اللغتَينِ العربية والإنكليزية، وتحتوي على مجموعةٍ واسعةٍ من الروابط لتعزيز سهولة القراءة. وقد نفّذ التصميم العربيّ باسكال الزُغبي من محترَف «٢٩حرف»، بينما صممت مؤسسة «سويس تايبفايسز» الشكل اللاتينيّ. تمّ تنفيذ المشروع بالتعاون مع وكالة العلامات التجارية «وولف أولينز» التي كانت وراء ابتداع الهوية التجارية المميِّزة لهيئة الطرق والمواصلات في دبيّ

In present-day, you can visualize the fonts in use by visiting RTA website and RTA social media platforms: RTA Facebook, RTA Twitter, RTA Instagram. In the near future, the new fonts of RTA will be progressively implemented on all transportation systems in Dubai to replace the old visual identity.

بإمكانك، حالياً، الاطّلاع على أنواع الخطوط المستخدَمة عن طريق زيارة الموقع الإلكترونيّ لهيئة الطرق والمواصلات وكذلك وسائط التواصل الاجتماعيّ التابعة للهيئة: فيسبوك، وتويتر، وانستقرام. وستُطبَّق، في المستقبل القريب، مجموعة الخطوط الجديدة الخاصة بهيئة الطرق والمواصلات في دبيّ تدريجياً، حتى استبدال الهوية المرئية القديمة بشكلٍ كامل

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.

29LT Baseet Type System: 

29LT Baseet type system consists of 16 styles; 8 Standard styles and 8 Slanted styles. The styles are: Thin, Thin Slanted, Extra Light, Extra Light Slanted, Light, Light Slanted, Regular, Slanted, Medium, Medium Slanted, Bold, Bold Slanted, Extra Bold, Extra Bold Slanted, Black, and Black Slanted.

The standard Arabic style is inspired by the Modern Kufic and Naskh calligraphic styles; while the slanted Arabic style is instigated by the Eastern Kufic and Naskh calligraphic styles. The Latin counterpart is based on mono-spaced style.

29LT Baseet Description:

29LT Baseet is a simplified typeface drawn with extreme care and attention incorporating a mono-linear structure that permits casualty within a relaxed atmosphere. The letter structures are a mixture of straight vertical, horizontal and diagonal lines fused in between curved smooth corners and sharp edges, together they give the typeface a dynamic characteristic and energetic feel that fits seamlessly in today’s world. Its round terminals and mono-spaced Latin letters lends the typeface a young and friendly image that makes it suitable for diverse projects ranging from fun and urban to serious and corporate.

It is a type family with maximum legibility and ease of use. The Arabic letterforms arrangement represents modernity while retaining its calligraphic traditional. Whereas the Latin is drawn based on the mono-spaced or mono-type fonts from the early 20^th century for typesetting machines and typewriters. The fonts were designed within a simplified Arabic character set and a mono-spaced Latin design to enhance the script’s simplicity, and simple is, after all, what Baseet means.

The Slanted fonts are categorized as what is known as “true Italics” in the sense that the glyphs were redrawn based on the Eastern Kufic style and not just slanted from the standard style. The traditional Eastern Kufic style is written with a left incline in the pen. Some letters change radically between the Standard and the Slanted styles, while other just acquired a slant. The name “Slanted” was adopted instead of “Italic” for the 8 inclined styles since in Arabic typography and calligraphy there is no such term as an italic style.

A number of elements bring both Arabic and Latin scripts together: the design approach, open counters, proportions, terminals and finials, weight and contrast. Both scripts were created in synergy and were inspired from each other simultaneously.

29LT Baseet Story:

The story of Baseet starts in 2009. The graphic design studio EPS51 in Berlin approached 29Letters for the creation of an Arabic font as a companion to Simple Typeface from Lineto Type Foundry. The font was initially created for the ContempArabia event in the Gulf Region. The initial work done on the font was a collaboration between Pascal Zoghbi from 29LT and Ben Wittner from EPS51. Basic Arabic Regular and Bold fonts were created and used throughout the visual identity of ContempArabia.

In 2010, 29Letters was launched as a digital type foundry and 29LT Basset was one of the first published typeface. Ben Wittner and Pascal Zoghbi embarked on the development of the Arabic character to cover Arabic, Farsi and Urdu scripts, while Swiss Typefaces took on the challenge on creating a new mono-spaced Latin companion. The type family grow from 2 to 4 weights and it covered all Middle Eastern and Central and Western European languages.

In 2016, after 6 years since the first set of 29LT Basset was published, 29Letters took the challenge of growing the type family from 4 into 16 fonts. The change of technology and the advanced support of the Arabic script in the past 6 years required a complete transformation of the old font files into newly developed files using the latest type design software. The main character set was revised and updated to cover more languages, and a set of ligatures were added to the Standard set. After the 8 new Standard fonts were created, it came the time to think of what would be the best way to approach an Italic set for both the Arabic and the Latin. For the Latin it was straight forward since it was based on the Italic Mono-type style, but it was challenging for the Arabic since Italic doesn’t exist in the Arabic script. After research and several trials of design options, it was decided to base the Arabic Italics on the Eastern Kufic calligraphic style as explained above in this post. Hence the design of 8 Slanted styles was created making the Baseet type family complete.

From 4 to 8 to 16 over the past 6 years!

29LT Baseet Features:

Below are the set of features present in 29LT Baseet typeface in both the Standard and the Slanted styles:

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. Figures

Arabic, Indic, Farsi and Urdu Figures

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

29LT Azal is a sturdy geometric font with contemporary Arabic features that are inspired from the old Eastern Kufic manuscripts and drawn in a modern-day approach, and old is, after all, what Azal means in Arabic. It is a display font with prominent and sturdy design characteristics. Each letter structure is designed to create a balance between solid base forms and elegant terminals. The font structure is a mixture of: high contrast between thick and thin pen strokes, diagonal skeleton, small counters, thick baseline and sharp edges contrasted by circular dots.

The font corresponds to the old manuscripts that were hand drawn by the “qalam”– which is a type of pen made from a dried reed, used for Islamic calligraphy. To emphasize on the usage of this technique, each set of novel letter structures has a different angle that gives the typeface a dynamic feature.

أزل هو خط هندسي متماسك مع ميزات عربية معاصرة مستوحاة من المخطوطات الكوفية الشرقية القديمة ومرسومة بنهج حديث. فعلى أي حال، تعني كلمة « أزل » باللغة العربية قديم. إنه خط عرض يتميز بخصائص تصميمية بارزة ومتماسكة. إن هيكلية كل حرف مصممة من أجل خلق توازن بين أشكال القاعدة الصلبة والنهايات الطرفية الأنيقة

تُعد هيكلية الخط مزيجًا مما يلي: تباين كبير بين ضربات القلم السميكة والرقيقة، ومخطط هيكلي قطري، وعلامات صغيرة، وخط قاعدة سميك وأطراف حادة تتناقض مع نقاط دائرية. يتوافق هذا الخط مع المخطوطات القديمة التي كانت تُرسم يدويًا بواسطة «القلم» – وهو نوع من الأقلام، مصنوع من القصب المجفّف ومستخدم للخط الإسلامي. ومن أجل التشديد على استخدام هذه التقنية، تتمتع كل مجموعة من هيكليات الحرف العصرية بزاوية مختلفة تمنح الخط ميزة ديناميكية

PROCESS

Azal was created within the duration of one month by the American University of Sharjah (AUS) students in the College of Architecture, Art and Design (CAAD) enrolled in the “Arabic Typography” course that is given by Professor Pascal Zoghbi. At the start of the project letters were distributed among 17 students to be worked on, they were curated every week by the professor to review their progress, and provide feedback on the changes that were needed to be made to achieve the final result of the font Azal.

In the beginning of the process, the font was first based on rough and geometric edges. After some revision, it was decided to take a more curved direction until a balance of the two was achieved. As the sketches progressed, changes on the previous constraints were altered depending on each of the letters’ characteristics; in order to achieve satisfactory final forms.

After the drawing phase, type design digital techniques were discussed in class which enabled each student to draw their letters on the Glyphs App. All the letters were compiled on one file and recurrent design and feedback sessions were conducted in class to make the necessary alterations that made Azal come together.

Alongside the finalization phase of the font, students experimented with different design mediums to showcase the font, varying from posters to 3D models.

The 17 students that worked on this font were a combination of sophomores, juniors and seniors: Ahmad Geaissa, Layal AlGain, Malak Kobaisi, Mariam El-Ashmawy, Felwa Alhouti, Tala Khalil, Shaikha AlMaazmi, Lama Murad, Deena Khatib, Kinda Waisi, Nada Aldash, Aisha Almuhairi, Dima Khalayli, Sali Mallat, Shahdan Barakat, Aliaa Elhammamy, Afnan Al Dimasi.

The talk and workshop I gave at NUQAT Design Conference, Kuwait 2012, revolved around the topic of reviving traditional Arabic script into contemporary Arabic typefaces, patterns/arabesques and design applications for our everyday life. The traditional is not lost but being redefined.

LECTURE, 5th October, 2:00 pm:
Reinventing The Arabic Script / Contemporary Out of Archaic
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Lecture Description
The talk is a journey between archaic/traditional Arabic calligraphy and contemporary Arabic typography and typefaces. Old calligraphic manuscripts were compared with contemporary Arabic typefaces from the 29LT Arabic type collection to showcase the inspiration and creative process of developing innovative Arabic fonts that are in reference to archaic calligraphic writings.

WORKSHOP 7, 7th, 8th & 9th October, 2:00pm to 6:00pm:
Square Kufic / Arabesque Patterns
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Workshop Description
The workshop granted the participants the comprehension of Arabic Kufic patterns and enabled them to create their own Kufic patterns. The workshop introduced the three main Kufic calligraphic styles: Archaic Kufic, Floral Modern Kufic and Square Kufic, and then moved on to become a Hands-On drawing session of arabesque patterns.

Participants started with sketching words, to creating Kufic arabesque patterns, and finally transforming the 2D pattern into a design element that can be used in our everyday modern life.

Below are some of the design items created by the participants:

Square Kufic TABLE:
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Square Kufic KITE:
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Square Kufic DOOR HANGER:
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Archaic Kufic CERAMIC PLATE:
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Modern Kufic BRACELET:
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Modern Kufic T-SHIRT:
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Square Kufic iPHONE COVER:
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Square Kufic INTERIOR MURAL:
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Square Kufic BOOKMARK:
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Modern Kufic GLASS LANTERN:
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Since the publication of the Arabic Graffiti Book in 2011, which I co-edited with Don Karl, the scene and stance of graffiti in Beirut has changed drastically. With the development of the Arab Spring across the neighboring Arab nations such as in Syria and Egypt, Beirut has experienced a new Arab graffiti scene and a new censorship aspect that was not present in the previous years. Alongside Lebanese socio-political stencils and murals, Beirut is being bombarded with Syrian, Egyptian and as usual Palestinian political and revolutionary writings.

عذرا إن أزعجنا أحد، إننا في سوريا، نبني وطن
Sorry for disturbing anyone, We are in Syria, Building a Nation

What we are seeing as Egyptian graffiti in Beirut is just a small fraction of the growing graffiti scene in Egypt since the revolution. Writings against Mubarak and the “Be with the revolution” stencil, created by the Egyptian designer Mohamad Gaber, were seen on the walls of Beirut during the past year.

On the other hand, when it comes to Syrian graffiti, it seems that one of the few “free” spaces for Syrians and supporters of the Syrian revolution to spray is Beirut. Stencils and writing in support of the revolution/opposition and against the Syrian regime are being spotted either fully rendered or blacked out. We have heard of arrests, tortures and killings of teenage Syrians who have sprayed slogans on the walls in Dera’a and Homs against the Syrian regime. It proved that in Syria it is not only a matter of censorship but also a matter of life and death. The Syrian government has also banned spray cans from the stores and Syrians need a special ID at the moment to purchase spray cans. This said, it seems like the Syrians in Lebanon and their Lebanese supporters are finding Beirut walls easier and safer to spray on, but they are also being followed and censored by the political parties in Beirut that support the Syrian regime. Stencils of Bashar Al-Assad with Hitler’s hair style and moustache have been sprayed all over the walls of Beirut and blacked out immediately afterwards by pro-Bashar political parties in Lebanon.

Bashar/Hitler Stencil Blacked Out

The Bashar/Hitler stencil was originally designed by Egyptian street artist El Teneen who was one of the first designer to stencil around Tahriri Square in Cairo in January 2011, the stencil spread over the social networks and it was popping up in Lebanon, Palestine and Egypt.

ملك الغابة راكب دبابة
The King of the Jungle rides a tank
&
حمص أم الأبطال
Homs / Mother of the Heros

Stencils like the: “Syrian opposition flag” of green top strip, three medial red starts and black lower strip, “Revolutionary hand of Homs”, “Free Syria 2011-2012”, “Nation in the Building”, “Liar… is the Syrian Media”, and among others are sprayed and blacked out. The stencils are not only being blacked out but also replaced by pro-regime writings besides them. After this being done, the graffiti become more credible and the censoring parties become obsolete in their act. The names of the pro-Syrian regime political parties will not be mentioned in this article since this is not a political blog.

‪كذاب الإعلام السوري‬
Liar/Syrian Media

‪الشعب أراد الحياة‬
سيستجيب القدر
سوريا حرة
2011 – 2012, The people want to live. Faith will answer. Syria Free.

Opposition Flag Blacked Out

The stencils are not only being blacked out but also replaced by pro-regime writings besides them. After this being done, the graffiti become more credible and the censoring parties become obsolete in their act. The names of the pro-Syrian regime political parties will not be mentioned in this article since this is not a political blog.

An Arabic article about this topic is present on Hanibaael Blog, written by Hani Naim.

Coming back to Lebanese graffiti, we have been surprised by a wave of censorship/blacking out and court orders beings implemented on Lebanese artists who are spraying images or slogans against the Lebanese Army or the Security Forces. It seems like they are being influenced by their Syrian counterpart, and they are blacking out and sending artists to court if the graffiti is targeting them. Ali’s stencil of a Lebanese policeman wearing an “I love corruption” T-Shirt under his uniform, was blacked out hours after it was sprayed alongside a graffiti done by the Egyptian artist known as Ganzeer. Samaan Khawam was sent to court on the charges of vandalism of public spaces and might be sentenced to prison for a few months or pay a fine after he did a stencil showing army boots, rifles and hamlets above each other. Graffiti was not being put under the spotlight in the past years by the LSF; however, graffiti artists are being prosecuted nowadays when they target governmental issues.

Ali’s stencil of a Lebanese policeman wearing an “I love corruption” T-Shirt under his uniform.

Is this situation changing due to the blacked out Syrian graffiti in Beirut? Does the government want to silence any opposing view towards the Lebanese Army and Security Forces? Why weren’t all the previous socio-political graffiti in Beirut seen as vandalism or threatening national security?

I have previously written in the Arabic Graffiti Book that the LSF never spotted any graffiti artist in the act after midnight or during daylight. However, as we noticed, the opposing political Lebanese and Arab graffiti is being watched out now by governmental and political parties in Lebanon. Hopefully, this censorship will not evolve to affect other artistic socio-political drawings, and the freedom of street art in Lebanon will not be silenced and marked as vandalism by the Lebanese government.

This spring, the elective course “Introduction to Arabic Type Design” at AUB [American University of Beirut] was introduced. It is given part of the Graphic Design program at AUB. Third and fourth year students who were interested in Arabic type and wanted to develop their skills in understanding and drawing Arabic letters, enrolled in the course. The course was an ongoing collaboration between the students and I. I had to evaluate what they could and needed to learn as opposed to what was too advanced for them.

The aim of the course was to teach the students the design and technical skills needed for developing professional Arabic lettering and logotypes as well as the beginning of an Arabic typeface. Students learned to analyze and identify the different Arabic type styles and their classifications.

They were taught the basic skills for creating their own typefaces through the type design process that consists of: 1. Sketching type, 2. Drawing type, 3. Tracing and creating outlines for letters, 4. Spacing the typeface and 5. Generating the font into a workable format.

Sample sentence of the fonts created during the course.

The course was divided into two main parallel approaches to the subject.
The first approach consists of hands-on exercises dealing with advanced Arabic typography and type design skills, including hand drawn lettering and Arabic calligraphy. The second approach consists of learning the computer techniques needed to digitize typefaces and generate basic Arabic fonts through lectures and introductory lessons on font editing applications.

Poster design by Ayman Hassan for one of the design lecture series at AUB. Kufayfar type in use in the poster.
Poster design was supervised by Reza Abedini.

Introductory lettering exercises were given at the start of the course to familiarize the students with drawing Arabic letters and words. Students were asked to create their own Arabic urban lettering and later Arabic logotypes before they embarked on the creation of their first Arabic font.

Below are some sample works of the urban lettering exercise:

‎فايتين بالحيط / Julie El Khoury

‎ضو الضو / Bassel Fatayri

‎شو معقدة / Reem Al Ayoubi

‎شي بقرف / Andrea Tohme

‎متأزّم / Salwa Faour

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As for the Arabic Fonts created, below are some brief preview of the sketching and outlined final letters:

SAWA font created by Salwa Faour & Bassel Fatayri:
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The font is inspired from contemporary/free-style calligraphy.

KUFUQ font created by Nadia Deghayli & Andrea Tohme:
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The font is a revival of the Eastern Kufic calligraphic style found in old Qoranic manuscripts.

JEEM font created by Joelle Haddad:
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The font is based on the Naskh Mastari style. It is a type proposal for the Lebanese Army to be used for their badges and signage.

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AUB- Faculty of Engineering & Architecture – Graphic Design Department- Spring 2012
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29LT Azer type family consist of 14 styles, 7 Standard styles and 7 Slanted styles, covering the following weights: Thin, Extra Light, Light, Regular, Medium, Bold, and Black.

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.

29LT Azer Description:

29LT Azer is drawn with extreme refinement and low pen contrast that conveys a modern and friendly outlook. The typeface combines simple lines with careful detailing to create a serious yet approachable mood. Azer is amicable and serious without being conformist. The typeface combines charm, simplicity and consideration. The light weights of the type family are easy to read in long blocks of copy, while the heavy weights imply strength and seriousness which makes them suitable for display-text such as titles and slogans. The slanted styles give the type family an added typographic voice for highlight or emphasis.

The standard styles retain a balance between calligraphic angular cuts and unadorned construction. The contrast in the letters was complemented with strong cuts and edges to give the font a crispy robust attitude. Letterforms were given innovative letter structures inspired the calligraphic makeup but drawn in a contemporary approach. The Arabic ligatures are intended to enhance the script’s ‘friendliness’, and friendly is after all, what Azer means in Arabic.

The slanted styles are the casual siblings of the standard styles in the type family. The slanted letters were redrawn based on fast hand-gestures and not merely slanted from the standard letters. The stems are slanted while the counters are round and smooth. In the Arabic character set, the terminals are curvy with an open-ended bowls and the baseline links are smooth. They are a set of free-spirited styles that can accompany the standard set for change of text tone, or stand alone as a causal copy text or delightful display text. The slanted styles are a cursive set of fonts that is known as “true-italics” which are based on a stylized form of quick calligraphic handwriting. The name “slanted” was adopted instead of “italic” for the inclined styles since in Arabic typography and calligraphy there is no such term as an italic style.

A number of elements bring the Arabic and Latin scripts together; the overall design approach, open counters, proportions, weight, contrast, terminals and finials, as well as a diamond-shaped diacritic dot. Both scripts were created in synergy and were inspired from each other simultaneously. The Naskh calligraphic style of the Arabic 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 Latin was drawn with conic shaped stems, inspired by the Arabic Alef glyph. The two scripts are like twins, with different attitudes.

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. 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.

29LT Azer Story:

In 2008, Azer was designed part of a branding project Pascal Zoghbi and Wael Morcos 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.

The design was resumed in preparation for the launch of the 29LT type foundry in 2012. As the Arabic design was taking shape, Swiss Typefaces, 29LT design partners, designed a sans serif Latin companion inspired from the Arabic letters structures.

The design progressed over a two-year period during which the three of them collaborated to bring the fonts to completion. Azer was one of the typefaces published as part of the official launch of the 29LT type foundry in August 2012. Back then it only existed in 5 standard styles; Thin, Light, Regular, Bold and Black.

In 2017, 5 years after the first release of 29LT Azer typeface, 29LT took on the challenge of growing the type family from 5 to 7 weights and to expand it into two design categories, standard and slanted, extending the family from 5 to 14 fonts. 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 original set.

After the creation of the 7 new weights, the time came to think about what would be the best way to approach the “italic” version of the typeface. New design decisions were needed and a calligraphic and typographic research was undertaken. Type designer Jan Fromm from Berlin was approached to create the italic version of the Latin, while Pascal Zoghbi tackled the solution for the Arabic counterpart.

In addition to the expansion of the weights and introduction of the slanted styles to the type family, the new fonts include advanced typographical support with features such as ligatures, alternates and stylistics sets inspired from calligraphy to improve the legibility of the fonts. Consequently, the range of western languages support grew to cover all Western, Central and Eastern European languages besides all American and African languages using the Latin script. Hence, the number of glyphs per font grew from 725+ in 2012 to 1625+ in 2015.

29LT Azer Features:

Below are the set of features present in 29LT Azer 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 01

Stylistic Sets to emphasis the scripts fluidity

6. Stylistic Set 02

Stylistic Sets for Persian and Urdu text

7. Elongated Teeth Alternates

When a tooth-letter is proceeded and succeeded by another tooth-letter, it is raised for increased legibility.

8. Figures

Arabic, Indic, Farsi and Urdu Figures

9. Figures

Lining, Tabular, and Old Style Figures

Interview with Pascal Zoghbi by Huda AbiFares from the Khatt Foundation.
Part of the Multiple Baselines series.

Pascal Zoghbi is one of the young generation of Arab type designers. He has participated in two of the design research projects of the Khatt Foundation: ‘Typographic Matchmaking’ and ‘Typographic Matchmaking in the City’ respectively. This interview will focus on his Arabic type design—mainly work that was inspired by hand-made lettering, calligraphy and street art.

1. What is your educational background and when did you start being interested in Arabic Type Design? Was it a person or incidence that inspired you? I pursued my Masters of Design at the Royal Academy of Arts in The Hague, The Netherlands in the year 2005. The Type & Media program taught me all I need to know about type design while concentrating on my emphasis – modern Arabic type. Prior to that, I received my Bachelor of Arts in Graphic Design – emphasis typography from Notre Dame University in Lebanon in 2002. There were several incidences during my graduation year at the BA studies that made me interested in the development of the Arabic type and script. Field trips to the first printing presses in Lebanon and lectures about iconic revolutionary designers (Nasri Khattar’s Unified Type) and their attempts to change or simplify the Arabic script triggered some interest in me. But the strong influence came from the renowned Lebanese philosopher and poet Saïd Akl. I was lucky to be able to attend the Arabic language course at NDU that Saïd Akl was giving for the last time. During the lecture he spoke about this attempt of creating the “Lebanese Type” which will replace the current Arabic script and will be easier for the Lebanese people to learn and use the type more efficiently. Beside learning about the “Lebanese Type”, Saïd Akl’s lectures and talk about the Arabic script and language made me love the script and triggered in me the curiosity to

2. You have started your career in type design with your Massira font, during your postgraduate studies at the Type & Media program of the Royal College of Art in The Hague (The Netherlands). This typeface was inspired by informal handwritten protest banners and graffiti. Can you tell more about this project, the design process and what you learned from it? I left Beirut in 2005 to start my post-graduate studies at KABK amidst the large demonstrations that were happening there after the assignation of the Prime Minister Hariri and the withdrawal of the Syrian army from Lebanon. I was one of the thousands of Lebanese people demonstrating and documenting the manifestations. I left to the Netherlands with a positive revolutionary spirit within me. During the first phase of the program I was learning the type design skills before creating my own Lebanese Arabic type family in the second phase of the program. The strong visuals of the demonstrations flashed before my eyes and I wanted to create an Arabic type family inspired from the writings of the Lebanese people and the different writing tools that were used. Instead of creating one font with different weights, I decided to create several fonts based on different writing tools like spray can, ball, point, lipstick, brush, chalk, etc… Of course I did not have the time to create all the different fonts for my graduation so I selected the most powerful writing tools: the Spray and the Ballpoint were the most common. I studied all the different kinds of written letters from the petition that was written during the demonstration, and I asked for extra hand written samples from my family, friends and colleagues in Lebanon. After analyzing the different kinds of writings and different shapes for certain Arabic letters, I started drawing my own type. I started with drawing skeleton shapes for each Arabic letters in all its positions, and then started experimenting with the spray and ballpoint tools on the skeletons to create the final outlines of the letters. Each letter had to be sprayed on an A3 paper and then scanned and traced and placed into the font. The flowing connectivity of the letters was the other challenge in the design process. Beside creating the display Spray and Ballpoint fonts, I created a body text font with sharp cuts and strong pen strokes to convey the idea of the revolution.

3. You have recently published a book on Arabic Graffiti and have been involved in graffiti workshop in Beirut. Is this a continuation of the Massira project (no pun intended) and has anyone in the Arab Spring uprising used your typeface? I return to Beirut from The Netherlands after the 2006 Israeli war on Lebanon. The demonstrations had stopped however a strong street art scene was present and socio-political graffiti were drawn in the walls of the city (the city walls). During my stay in The Netherlands I noticed the huge amount of graffiti there, and I was constantly taking photos of it around me. Coming back to Beirut I continued and started taking photos of the graffiti in Beirut especially the ones that had interesting Arabic lettering. Taking a distance from the hectic living in Beirut, i realized many special assets that I was taking for granted. I was amazed by the amount and variety of the Arabic street art scene in Beirut, such as the calligraphy on the trucks and the typography of old shop signs. The small hobby turned into a documentation and investigation of the street art in Beirut and Lebanon and the artists who were behind it. I had the chance to meet the Lebanese graffiti artists is the “Booming Beirut” workshop that was held by the German graffiti artist Don Karl. Since then Don and I were talking about creating a book about the Arabic graffiti in the Middle East and the world. Besides being a graffiti artist, Don is the founder of “From Here to Fame” publishing house in Berlin that publishes street art and graffiti books. Two years of research and documentation led to the creation of the Arabic Graffiti Book, which is a compilation of articles about the artists and the socio-political Arabic street art in Arab world and the west. I would not say that the Arabic Graffiti book is a continuation of the Massira project as much as a showcase of my interest in revolutionary typography that stems from the soul of the artist or designer behind it. I love letters with a message and a voice, letters that can start a revolution or stem from it, letters that speak out the suffering and struggle of a nation.

4. Right after your graduation, you have participated in the first Typographic Matchmaking project of the Khatt Foundation (2005-2007) and worked in collaboration with Martin Majoor on the Sada font? What were the challenges in developing a match for the Seria font? And what were the adjustments made to the font before it was later released as Seria Arabic by Font Shop international? Working with Martin Majoor was so pleasant and encouraging since it was my first professional Arabic type work after my graduation. We discussed how to make the characteristic of the Arabic letters match as closely as possible to the existing Latin Seria letters but at the same time follow the rules and dimensions of the Arabic Naskh style. What facilitated the design process of Sada was that I have tackled similar design approaches and problems with Massira that existed in Seria like the sharp edge cuts in the letters. Prior to publishing Sada as Seria Arabic with Font Shop International, I analyzed the beta version of Sada, tweaked and fixed the problems from the overall shape of some letters to the spacing and connectivity of some others. The loop shape of the Arabic letters were modified to correspond more with the Naskh letter structures and proportions, the endings of some letters like the “reh” where tweaked to solve the problem of spacing and the overlapping of the glyphs. Additional Light and Black weights were added to the existing regular and Bold, and finally the Arabic opentype features were added to the fonts and published. FF Seria Arabic was the first Arabic type-family to be published from Font Font.

5. You have often been commissioned to design matching Arabic fonts for existing font families. Can you tell about this process and what you have discovered doing it? Comprehending the writing, drawing and proportions of the Arabic letters based on the traditional calligraphic styles is the most essential aspect a type designer needs to understand and master before starting the design any Arabic type either for an existing Latin font or not. Creating an Arabic type for an existing Latin typeface require a complete comprehension of the Latin letters and design also. The type designer needs to analyze the design and flow of the Latin of the type before starting to design the Arabic part. The construction of the letters, and behavior of the connections, edges, ending, etc… of the Latin letters should be deciphered and then implemented into in the Arabic letters as close as possible will keeping the correct writing proportions of the Arabic and structure of the letters. The Arabic should be drawn based a certain Arabic calligraphic style (like Naskh, Kufi, Diwani, Thuluth,etc…) and not just constructed from cut out pieces of the Latin letters. A proper Arabic font that is created to be a companion for an existing Latin font should also be standing alone as an Arabic font as if it is design as an Arabic font without having any Latinazation in it. What makes the two fonts work together at the end is the over color of the fonts when set together, the weight, proportions, and design details like the endings shape and tension in the pen stroke.

6. Several of your typeface designs have been designed in collaboration with other designers. Can you describe the most productive collaboration that has resulted in an innovative typeface design?The collaboration with the renown Dutch type designer Erik van Blokland and architect Joumana al Jabri for the creation of the Hamsa type family within the Typographic Matchmaking in the City project was the most interesting in my career so far and different than the normal type design collaborations. The brief of the project forced us to approach the design process in a different method. Instead of starting with sketching and drawing letters on paper, we went out to the beach and started experimenting with water and sand. We wanted to find an idea that linked Amsterdam and Dubai together and we first focused on the dredging and landfills that both cities have. We started up with poring water into sand to melting wax (as a viscous liquid that will harden in sand and not seep into it) and poring it into letterforms dug into the sand. From the wax letters that came out from the sand we moved on to thin papers and sticks and started creating sail like letter structure that are in link to the thin wax letters we got out of the sand. In turn the paper and stick letters led us to draw ultra thin glyphs and we cut them out into pieces to make them constructible. This ended up in creating an ultra light stencil type Arabic/Latin alongside an arrow typeface for educational use and cutout typeface for graffiti use. The letters were created to exist in urban places and cry out messages in a discreet way. The letters can be made into huge structures and stand in plazas or cut out into cardboard and sprayed on the city walls as graffiti. They can be cut out into metallic or wood structures in urban items or come out of the sea as sailing structures. The end result is endless and that is what we love about it. The fonts created are open-ended and are not intended for one typographic purpose. They open the opportunity for future explorations from designers and typographers and that is what we love about them. The end result was never anticipated from the start of the project as it was with the 1^st typographic matchmaking project were we created Arabic fonts to be used alongside existing Latin print fonts. As a showcase of the use of the Hamsa fonts, Joumana and I cut out some of the Hamsa stencil letters into cardboards and went out during the Arabic language festival in Hamra, Beirut and sprayed on the walls words and slogans promoting the use and love of the Arabic language and script. Another interesting typographic collaboration was the work with Wolf Olins in New York on creating an Arabic/Latin corporate custom font for “Mathaf Arab Museum of Modern Art” that opened its doors to contemporary Arab art lovers in December 2010 in Doha, Qatar. The museum host exhibitions, programs and events that explore and celebrate art by Arab artists, and the corporate font had to reflect the contemporary edgy work of the artists in an elegant and unique approach, hence the birth of an ultra thin hybrid modern Kufi-Naskh font with strong tension and cuts in its’ structure. The work flow between Beirut and New York was daily and intense exploring all the aspects of the letters and the drawing of several options for each letter and how its’ effect on the overall color of the font. Unique ligatures were made like “rt”, “of”, “th”, etc. which are not present in the normal ligature set of Latin fonts. The ligatures were created to make the words looks unique in the logotype of the museum or inside a running text and at the same balance the baseline connections of the Arabic with the strong vertical standing Latin letters. We were trying to make the Latin come as much close to the Arabic and merge together as one. From the beginning the brief was to have the corporate font as light and elegant with an edgy feel in contrast to the secondary font that was created by Tarek Attrisi who was a bold hand written font inspired from fast Arabic handwritings. The spirit of the font is materializes when the curvy pen strokes meet up with the sharp cuts and corners of the letters. The Arabic letterforms complement an edgy lowercase Latin letters to present a unique bilingual Arabic–English type. The font created was incorporated in the whole corporate identity of the museum starting with the logotype, signage, publications, advertisements, website, promotional items, etc…

7. Which of your fonts and projects has had (or may have) a considerable cultural influence on Arab readers and designers today and why? I would say the Arabic headlines fonts that I have designed for the leading newspapers in the MENA region have the most influence on the Arab reader since the newspapers are published and read daily. The Droid Arabic fonts will also have their influence on the web and smart phones in the near future once Google^TM launches them. The Droid Arabic fonts will be the default Arabic fonts for all Google web products and smart phone products such as Google Chrome™ and Android™. At the moment I am customizing a headline Arabic font for Masri Al Youm newspaper in Cairo, and prior to that I have created headline Arabic font for Al Watan newspaper in Saudi Arabia, Emarat Al Youm newsper in Dubai,UAE and Al Rouiya newspaper in Kuwait. All these newspaper fonts had to be young, strong and bold Arabic typefaces based on the Naskh-mastari style. The first headline font I created was for Emarat Al Youm newspaper in Dubai that targets young readers. They asked for a fresh headline font with crisp and contemporary feel to it in comparison to the traditional headline fonts that were used in mostly all the other newspapers. I started with researching old and present Arabic newspapers in the Arab region and analyze the aspects of the headline fonts present in them. I examined the old handwritten calligraphic headlines of the newspapers that were issuing during the 70s and 80s and then moved on to the present tabloid of the 20^th century. I quickly noticed that the move from the handwritten to the digitized Arabic headline fonts had a strong influence on the connectivity of the letters. What was smooth and flowing in the handwritten headlines became rigid and straight in the digitized font, and what was Naskh or Ruqaa in style became rigid Naskh-Mastari type. My first proposal for Emarat Al Youm newspaper was a low contrast simplified Naskh fonts with curvy letters connections at the baseline to keep it as close as possible to the handwritten Naskh, but the option was rejected and they insisted that they want the baseline to be straight and rigid as the readers got used to; however, they kept for me the freedom to simplify the Naskh letterform and make them young and fresh. The result was my first Naskh Mastari headline font with simplified pen strokes, low contrast and open counters that makes it very easy to spot and read amongst other headlines of newspapers on the shelf or within the newspaper itself. After the creation of Imarat Headlines font, I was commissioned by other leading newspapers in the Arab region to create headline font for them and somehow under the same brief as the one I had from Emarat Al Youm. This made me challenge myself and dig deep into the construction of the Naskh letterforms and create different alternatives of outlines for the letters while keeping the young and fresh spirit present. I had to study in-depth the Naskh script and practice its traditional structure that in term enabled me to create new modern outlines for the new headline fonts. Droid Arabic (Naskh and Kufi) fonts are design to accompany Droid Serif and Droid Sans fonts that are design by Steve Metteson from AscenderCorp. Besides meeting the design approach of Droid Serif, Droid Naskh is purely designed according to the guides and proportions of the traditional Naskh calligraphic style. This Naskh style is optimized for reading Arabic script on screen. The large ‘loop height’ and ‘tooth height’ help prevent readers from having to zoom into web pages to read them. The traditional Naskh forms are softened for less formal documents such as periodicals and journals. The letterforms structures are based on the calligraphic grammatical rules of the Naskh writing style while drawn with a contemporary feel. Dawn Shaikh from Google performed several surveys and tests on the fonts during the design and development process it ensure the best legibility of the fonts on screen.

7. How does it feel to see your work used by other designers and can you describe such an event that surprised or pleased you? Besides Seria Arabic (Sada) that was commercially published by FontFont in 2009, all of my other fonts are custom and only used for what they were intended for. Hence there were no big surprises of the use of the custom fonts. As for Seria Arabic, I was surprise to notice that a large amount of recent Arabic children books were typeset with it. The font was not design for children publications, but I guess the young and fresh spirit in the typeface lends it to be favored for children’s books. For sure Seria Arabic is also used to typeset standard publications. I guess the big surprises will be when I start publishing my Arabic custom fonts as retail fonts once the exclusivity periods are over. I am launching my own Arabic type foundry in the near future and most of my custom fonts I created will be publish one after the other. The type-families Bukra and Baseet will be the first two and the others will follow consequently.

9. You have been teaching typography and type design at several universities, can you tell more about the places you have taught, the most inspiring experiences and what you think is important for type design education in the Arab world and Middle East in general? I started teaching typography courses at Notre Dame University (NDU) after my return from The Netherlands in 2006. I taught fundamental and advanced typography courses there until 2010. Since 2008 until present I am teaching introduction and advanced typography courses at the Lebanese American University (LAU) in the Beirut and Byblos campuses. Alongside, I started giving typography courses at the American University of Beirut (AUB) since 2010 together with the renowned Iranian typographer Reza Abedini. It is always inspiring to work with the students and explore new approaches in typography based on the collaborative input between the students and I. Beside the experience that I get from working with the students, it is also inspiring and an honor to teach alongside professional typographers like Reza Abedini at AUB; Randa Abed Al Baki, Alya Karami at LAU; Yara Khoury and John Kortbayi at NDU; etc… I love typography courses since they are hands one courses and not only lectures and presentation about typography. Besides teaching typography courses, I have given several workshop and introductory courses in Arabic type designing but not any advanced classes yet. We do not have yet an Arabic Type Design program in the Middle East universities that gives advanced professional type design courses like it is in Type & Media at KABK or the type design course at Reading. Graphic Design programs in the Middle East Lack advanced course in Arabic Type design or Arabic calligraphy. Both of these topics are only introduced during the programs and are not available as postgraduate studies. I wish that Arabic calligraphy classes would be introduced back into school programs and continued within Graphic Design programs. And hopefully we will have soon proper postgraduate studies in design with different disciplinary including Arabic type design.

10. It is only recently that we have been experiencing a true professionally-trained and dedicated Arab type designers. There is also a growing interest from western type designers in creating Arabic ‘extensions’ to their existing type families. How do you see the profession of type design developing in the future, an in particular in the Middle East and North African regions? The growth that is happening the Arab region bought in many investors and with it the need for new Arabic typefaces and visual identities. Type foundries and individual type designers noticed the huge new market with such small amount of professional Arabic typefaces. Additionally, the Arabic type design field is not much invested yet and there is still a lot to be experimented and explored in. The global village that we are living in also enforced the creation of new modern fonts that cover several scripts within and not just Latin, Cyrillic, Arabic, Hindi, etc. as it was before. Moreover, having Unicode covering all the languages and Opentype and other new technologies offering the possibility of developing advanced typefaces with multiple scripts facilitated the encouragement for Arab and non-Arab type designers to tackle the Arabic script and design new Arabic typefaces. I still see the development of Arabic fonts is still in its primary stages and the future will bring more advanced tools alongside more professional Arabic type designer to feed the needs of the growing market. Traditional, modern and experimental Arabic typefaces are needed and there is a demand for each category.

11. What is your advice for the younger generation of type designers from the region? I still consider myself part of the young generation of Arabic type designers, but I guess your question would be what would be my advice for the individuals who are starting the path of becoming Arabic type designers. I would say first and for most: learn, practice and understand Arabic calligraphy. That is the most important aspect and the start for becoming a professional Arabic type designer. Learn how to draw letters professional and using type design applications to do that rather than Adobe Illustrator. Comprehend the technology for the mastering of the fonts like Opentype features and encoding. The technical aspect of creating a professional font can be greater then creative drawing part. And lastly, love the letters that you are drawing, they are your babies ;)