Middle-eastern typography
Amazing posters by Reza Abedini
I had the chance to travel to some arabic countries where I discovered the beauty of calligraphy as building or object ornementation. However, I’ve been wondering how this free style could be transposed into movable types or glyphs. Well, after doing a little research I can say that I’ve not been disappointed by arabic or persian designers and font creators. There is some amazing talents in the Middle-East and it’s a sad thing that we don’t know much about them in the western world.
Arabic movable type letters, check out more pictures on Pascal Zoghbi’s blog
As you can see on the above picture, movable types for arabic languages look just as cool as latin ones and must be just as painful to use.
Learn about arabic fonts generation and its specific issues, on Pascal Zoghbi’s blog again.
Adapting latin fonts
One big challenge for arab typographers is to adapt some latin fonts. This is important in order to offer a wider catalog of fonts for graphic designers. I wonder if we do that the other way around and adapt arab fonts to latin.
Preview of Fedra Arabic and its common characteristic with its
Latin counterpart, by Tarek Atrissi.
Palatino’s adaptation by Nadine Chahine, a lebanese type designer.
Love the bottom-left poster; and Palatino Arabic is looking good (though I haven’t used it yet).
Nadine Chahine is certainly a very talented type designer.
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very interesting post.. and it’s good to start exploring your space from this point
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[...] Middle-Eastern Typography [...]
most wonderful site. I enjoyed the works very mmuch
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Iran is not an Arabic country
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Hello — I’m designing a brochure in Arabic, and I was wondering if there is only one Arabic language, or are there many? On my Apple Macintosh, there are many, many choices and I’m a bit perplexed.
I also understand that Arabic materials are read from right to left.
Any suggestions would be helpful…thank you!
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there are many languages that use Arabic letters.. while there is only one Arabic spoken and written language.
was that helpful? email me for further enquirers: alazaat@gmail.com
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The first one is Persian Typography, not Arabic. There’s a difference.
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King Tony Reply:
January 27th, 2009 at 2:55 am
Koss Nanat , this is Arabic u basturd ~! Persian are barberian
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Azza Alsharif Reply:
April 4th, 2009 at 3:32 am
barbarian thats a bit racist dont u think??? we are all gods creation
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hey omggggg this is wonderful for what i am doing im a BA student in textile design and i made a project proposal which is using the buildings in the uae and putting arabic calligraphy on the buildings .. using a grid as my base theme ….. if u have any ideas or advice on how to go about it and develop my work please doooo help u would be a life saviour
Azza Alsharif
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My company, Ascender Corp, works with a variety of type designers and foundries. We recently announced a license to distribute the Boutros library of Arabic fonts. Mourad and Arlette Boutros are respected designers who have crafted a nice collection of Arabic typefaces. You can see them here: http://www.ascenderfonts.com/category/boutros.aspx
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Awesome, i really enjoyed reading your post.
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kone babat:-D savadam ke nadari! arabian are barbarian.boro motalee kon abrot nare:-)))
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oftad???
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