Design Today

Arabic typography amongst other non-Latin scripts has gained tremendous attention during the past few years. Recently, it has perhaps experienced the fastest evolutional period of its long existence in the region (the Middle East). However, its evolution has not just been restricted to the Arab World. Rather, it has expanded globally, infused with characteristics of other scripts and influencing them as well. There have been numerous match-making (Latin/Arabic) projects that attempted to bring together these two (Latin and Arabic) fundamentally different scripts. The Khatt Foundation, founded by Huda Smitshuijzen AbiFares, is one of the few and major organizations that took on matchmaking projects between Latin and Arabic typefaces in the most professional and academic sense. There are a number of educational and research publications authored by Huda herself and published through organizations such as Typographic Matchmaking and Typographic Matchmaking in the City. These publications not only shed light on the growing need of our modern societies to go beyond traditional approaches in typography and type design, they also showcase projects that accomplish such goals. While there are currently a few projects conducted around the world in a similar spirit, there is certainly a need for measures that can evaluate their accomplishments — the pros and cons of each approach — by the experts within the field. 

There are certainly critical questions that Arabic typographers and type designers ask themselves on a daily basis. Working on any project that deals with script goes beyond the usual boundaries of design. Some of these questions are posed from a linguistics (or syntax) point of view — not necessarily to be solved by typographers. These are significantly influential in the typeface design process itself. For instance, issues that are unique to letterform connectivity, dots, and spacing (both with connected and disconnected letterforms within a word) are found in Arabic and Farsi script. Another example could be the multiplicity of letterforms (mainly in Farsi) that use identical pronunciation which unnecessarily add complexity to the overall structure of the script. Although there have been numerous efforts to challenge the exclusive qualities of the writing system, there still seems to be a lack of proper attention to structural fundamentals. The ideas of super type families (incorporating extended, regular, and condensed) and a large set of ligatures (covering every possible instance requiring a specific arrangement of letterforms with problematic connections) were made possible with the new capabilities of OpenType features. While these are certainly new contributions to the field, areas of investigation remain which would require more in-depth research into the fundamentals of the writing system itself. 

The use of Arabic type and its significance has been disseminated in the West during the past few years. It is becoming more clear that in order to be able to maintain a strong cultural, social, and political conversation with the Arab countries, it is important for the West to understand how the language works. On one hand, with more-than-ever instability in the Middle East, and the immigration crisis, the role of communication in non-Latin (in this case Arabic) languages has become even more critical. On the other hand—due to the increasing migrating population as one of the major factors in and of itself—the growing number of scattered inhabitants (from this region across the globe) has truly forced the language to go beyond its known geographical boundaries. Yet, there are still very few entities that celebrate the importance of script, let alone its underlying culture and values. Therefore, it is not unprecedented to see an attempt by major designers to bring awareness to this area in recent years. 100 Best Arabic Posters is a non-profit organization based in Cairo, Egypt with the mission of honoring the 100 best Arabic posters designed in the past three years around the globe. The organization is founded by Professor Rayan Abdullah (founding Dean of the faculty of Applied Arts and Sciences at the German University in Cairo and Professor of Typography in Leipzig, Germany), Ahmad Saqfalhait (graphic designer and acting head of the Graphic Design department at the German University in Cairo), Darius Gondor (Graphic Designer and Lecturer at the German University in Cairo) and Jochen Braun (Graphic Designer and Lecturer at the German University in Cairo). According to the 100BAP press release, “the organization acts as a collective and dynamic platform with the aim of reviving and embracing the diversity of the Arab world’s visual language, solely through collected and selected Arabic posters. The mission is to appraise the importance of poster design as a modern, contemporary medium of communication in and for the region.” The main goal of the project, per organization’s statement, is to document the evolution of Arabic typography and graphic design, while reuniting the Arab World on a yearly basis. There are only two main criteria for the entries: Posters should use Arabic language and should also be published within the past three years. The selected pieces are exhibited in galleries, museums, and institutions across the globe throughout the year, archived digitally, and published in a printed catalog. While Arabic language seems to be core to this collection of works, the organization embraces other non-Arabic languages that use Arabic script such as Farsi and Urdu as well. This allows for the reunion of not only the 22 Arabic speaking countries, but also other countries that use the script as either the only official or alongside other scripts in a sub-national level.

Whether the organization can truly manage to bring together the Arab World by means of such ambitious projects, only time can be a true judge. What is clear, however, is that non-Latin scripts such as Arabic do deserve such attention at a global scale. While the number of professional individuals pushing the boundaries of Arabic typography has increased rapidly over the years, there are still not enough venues that celebrate those efforts to their full potential or encourage native designers and typographers to close the gap between traditional and modern Arabic typography. For decades, this gap has been a burden for calligraphers. They aim to extend beyond tradition and gain design knowledge that can be applied to contemporary society with substantial meaning — as opposed to superficial adaptation of the traditional craft — and to dive deeper into hundreds of years of tradition that led to perfection in form and concept through calligraphy. If indeed such events and organizations can establish grounds where those conversations can be held, and cultivate critical thinking that can challenge our current state of conventional aesthetics and rationale, one could be hopeful that the coming years will bring vast technological, formal, and conceptual advancements in the field of Arabic typography.