Style combination · Pairs well

Bitmap × Square Kufic

Both build letters from square units, and Sakkal compares building bricks to large pixels; set a bitmap Latin wordmark on the same cell size as a square-Kufic mark for a bilingual identity, but keep sacred formulas out of jokey, game-like pixel contexts.

From the research on Square Kufic (Bannāʾī)

Mix them and make something Bitmap Square Kufic

A sample layout drawn from the recipe: shapes from Bitmap, their arrangement from Square Kufic, the finish from Bitmap. Not a real work, and not an image of either style.

What each style brings

Each part of the design comes from the style with the stronger say in it, and each style gives at least two.

Bitmap & Pixel Graphics Square Kufic (Bannāʾī)

Type from Square Kufic: Bitmap & pixel
Rotated & vertical setting
Colour from Square Kufic: Limited spot colours
Flat fields
Form from Bitmap: Pictogram
Rectilinear
Composition from Square Kufic: Modular grid
Repetition & rhythm
Surface from Bitmap: Grain & noise
Flat

The type

Open fonts standing in for each style’s own type, which is often hand-drawn or commercial.

Display · Square Kufic

Signal

Reem Kufi, standing in for Bannāʾī (maʿqilī): square Kufic laid in glazed and unglazed bricks or tiles, one brick or tile per grid unit, with stroke and gap of equal width

Text · Bitmap

Graphics and lettering built from the square pixels of low-resolution screens (arcade and console sprites, home-computer displays and the first graphical user interfaces), where every dot was placed by hand within tight limits of memory, resolution and palette. Designers such as Susan Kare turned those constraints into a language of legible pictogram icons, jagged bitmap fonts and dithered tones.

VT323; Bitmap used Chicago and Geneva and Monaco

The colours

The ground and leading colours come from Square Kufic, with a counter-accent from Bitmap. The ink reads on the ground at 4.5:1 or more.

Bitmap & Pixel Graphics Square Kufic (Bannāʾī)

#f3eee3 ground · 36%
#161616 ink · 14%
#2a9ea6 accent · 18%
#9bbc0f accent · 14%
#1e3d8f accent · 10%
#ff55ff accent · 8%

As CSS

:root {
  --ground: #f3eee3;
  --ink: #161616;
  --accent-1: #2a9ea6;
  --accent-2: #9bbc0f;
  --accent-3: #1e3d8f;
  --accent-4: #ff55ff;
  --font-display: "Reem Kufi", cursive;
  --font-text: "VT323", monospace;
}

Use it with care

Square Kufic (Bannāʾī): Square-Kufic panels almost always spell sacred words: the names of God, Muhammad and ʿAli, the shahada, the takbir or Qur'anic phrases. Never crop, mirror or scramble them, never fill a surface with invented pseudo-Kufic as a pixel texture, and keep such text off floors, footwear, packaging and other throwaway surfaces. Some formulas belong to one community, such as the Shiʿi addition 'ʿAli is the friend of God', so have every composition read and approved by a fluent reader or a square-Kufic calligrapher, and commission or credit living calligraphers rather than tracing panels from buildings. The square-Kufic takbir band belongs to the flag of the Islamic Republic of Iran (since July 1980), and many Iranian opposition groups and diaspora communities fly the Lion and Sun flag or a plain tricolour instead, so do not quote the band as decorative Persian shorthand. Do not treat the names Muhammad and ʿAli together as neutral filler either: they interlock on the minarets of the Shah Mosque in Isfahan, and they also appear in the blue brickwork of the Timurid shrine of the Sunni Sufi Khoja Ahmed Yasavi, so check how the community commissioning the work reads them.

The two styles

A retro pixel-art space navigation interface shows a gridded star map with a spiral galaxy, colorful stars, and green celestial bodies. A right-hand panel displays a cyan planet and its statistics, while object cards and a command menu run along the bottom.

1977–1995 · North America, East Asia Bitmap & Pixel Graphics Graphics and lettering built from the square pixels of low-resolution screens (arcade and console sprites, home-computer displays and the first graphical user interfaces), where every dot was placed by hand within tight limits of memory, resolution and palette. Designers such as Susan Kare turned those constraints into a language of legible pictogram icons, jagged bitmap fonts and dithered tones. c. 1100–present · Middle East & North Africa, South Asia Square Kufic (Bannāʾī) Square Kufic builds Arabic script on a square grid: straight lines and right angles only, with every stroke as wide as the gap beside it. A word can then fill a square, a band or a whole wall without gaps. It grew from twelfth- and thirteenth-century brick and tile inscriptions, probably first in Iran and Afghanistan, where one brick or glazed tile made one unit, and spread to Central Asia, Anatolia and the Maghreb. The names of God, Muhammad and ʿAli repeat across minarets and façades. In modern times it was revived for logos, the flag of Iran and calligraphy.