The Academic Events Group, 3rd WORLD CONFERENCE on DESIGN, ARTS AND EDUCATION

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Designing Arabic Typefaces: Between Modernity and Tradition
mohamed hazem mohamed taha hussein abdalla

Last modified: 2014-04-09

Abstract


With the globalization of visual systems in the Middle East arose new demands in the Arabic graphic design. The imported western commercial and cultural products had created in the Arabic societies new hybrid needs and contradicted visual languages. Unfortunate, western design methodologies and models like constructivism have hardly been understood, even from educators or designers. Modern typography is usually mistaken with calligraphic talent. The controversial European styles like Arts Nouveau have been arabized from designers, who are still dealing with Arabic letterforms as a result of sacred Islamic art. It seems that the western aesthetical norms should be used en mass. Even when we identify its negative impact of the westernized Hebrew and Sanskrit scripts, many of type designers are still using matchmaking techniques in order to create Arabic typefaces out of Latin letterforms: Arabic and Latin types should look identical! It is understandable to find international brands like Coca Cola, Kodak, and Kentucky looking for identical corporate Arabic versions. Their products need to be promoted in unified appearances with dialect language and local touch. But in case of creating a new Arabic typeface for body text, letterforms should be designed according to Arabic reading’s habits. Therefor, this paper will focus on the majority of Arabic readers, and reject both of the above-mentioned methods. A new approach for designing Arabic typeface will be presented with the hypothesis that a mixture between old Arabic letterforms could create economical types without causing conflicts with global visual norms.


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