Stylogeny combining Bulaq Naskh Book Printing × Cairo–Beirut Arab Modernist Book

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Style combination · Pairs well

Bulaq Naskh Book Printing × Cairo–Beirut Arab Modernist Book

Wrap a sober, justified Naskh text block in a hand-lettered, illustrated cover printed in flat offset colour, so the inside reads as a classic and the outside as a modern Arab book.

From the research on Bulaq (Amiriyya) Naskh Book Printing

Mix them and make something Bulaq Naskh Book Printing Cairo–Beirut Arab Modernist Book

PublicBulaqNaskh Book × Cairo–Beirut Arab
A sample layout drawn from the recipe: shapes from Cairo–Beirut Arab Modernist Book, their arrangement from Bulaq Naskh Book Printing, the finish from Bulaq Naskh Book Printing. Not a real work, and not an image of either style.

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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.

Bulaq (Amiriyya) Naskh Book Printing Cairo–Beirut Arab Modernist Book & Periodical Design

Type from Cairo–Beirut Arab Modernist Book
Colour from Cairo–Beirut Arab Modernist Book
Form from Cairo–Beirut Arab Modernist Book
Composition from Bulaq Naskh Book Printing
Surface from Bulaq Naskh Book Printing

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The type

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

Display · Cairo–Beirut Arab Modernist Book

Public

Rakkas, standing in for Hand-drawn Kufic-derived Arabic display lettering

Text · Bulaq Naskh Book Printing

The page of the Arabic printed book as Egypt's state press at Bulaq shaped it from 1822: justified blocks of black Naskh type on pale paper, often boxed in a ruled frame, with an ornamental headpiece on the opening page, headings set larger or in a second script such as Nastaʿlīq, and almost no pictures. It printed army manuals, laws, textbooks, translated science, the Arabic classics and the official gazette. Calligraphers drew its later types, Mirza Sanglakh and then Muhammad Jaʿfar, whose 1905–06 body type was the basis of the 1924 Qur'an and lives on as Khaled Hosny's Amiri.

Libre Caslon Text; Bulaq Naskh Book Printing used Bulaq (Amiriyya) Naskh body type, 1905–06, drawn by the calligrapher Muhammad Jaʿfar Bey and Bulaq Naskh and Nastaʿlīq types by the Persian calligrapher Mirza Sanglakh, made for Muhammad Ali's press

03

The colours

The ground and leading colours come from Cairo–Beirut Arab Modernist Book, with a counter-accent from Bulaq Naskh Book Printing. The ink reads on the ground at 4.5:1 or more.

Bulaq (Amiriyya) Naskh Book Printing Cairo–Beirut Arab Modernist Book & Periodical Design

  • #f0e6cf ground · 36%
  • #1c1a17 ink · 14%
  • #e1a930 accent · 18%
  • #7a5236 accent · 14%
  • #c4362c accent · 10%
  • #cdbb93 accent · 8%

As CSS

:root {
  --ground: #f0e6cf;
  --ink: #1c1a17;
  --accent-1: #e1a930;
  --accent-2: #7a5236;
  --accent-3: #c4362c;
  --accent-4: #cdbb93;
  --font-display: "Rakkas", cursive;
  --font-text: "Libre Caslon Text", serif;
}

Use it with care

Bulaq (Amiriyya) Naskh Book Printing: The press also set the Qur'an (the 1924 Cairo edition) and hadith collections such as the Sultaniyya Sahih al-Bukhari, and Bulaq-style Naskh and Amiri are still used for Qur'anic and religious text, so never crop, mirror or distort Qur'anic verses or the names of God and the Prophet, use them as texture, or put them on floors, footwear or throwaway packaging. Set Arabic right to left with correct contextual shaping, have every word read by a fluent reader, never fill a layout with pseudo-Arabic, and never present a generated page as a historical Bulaq imprint.

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The two styles

Large black Arabic calligraphy reading “طلب العلم” is centered on a textured cream background. A black-and-muted-gold rectangular border, small corner flowers, and symmetrical floral flourishes above and below frame the lettering. 1822–1956 · Middle East & North Africa Bulaq (Amiriyya) Naskh Book Printing The page of the Arabic printed book as Egypt's state press at Bulaq shaped it from 1822: justified blocks of black Naskh type on pale paper, often boxed in a ruled frame, with an ornamental headpiece on the opening page, headings set larger or in a second script such as Nastaʿlīq, and almost no pictures. It printed army manuals, laws, textbooks, translated science, the Arabic classics and the official gazette. Calligraphers drew its later types, Mirza Sanglakh and then Muhammad Jaʿfar, whose 1905–06 body type was the basis of the 1924 Qur'an and lives on as Khaled Hosny's Amiri. A vintage-style illustration shows a woman in a patterned headscarf and red embroidered dress holding a large key, with olive branches in the foreground. Behind her are sailboats, a waterfront town with a dome and minaret, birds, and a large golden sun; red Arabic lettering spans the top. 1952–1990 · Middle East & North Africa Cairo–Beirut Arab Modernist Book & Periodical Design The illustrated book, magazine and children's-book culture that ran from Cairo's post-1952 publishing houses to the Arab nationalist and leftist presses of Beirut. Hand-drawn Arabic titles reworked from Kufic and everyday scripts, rough, expressive pen-and-brush drawing and flat offset colour gave mass readers and children a modern, decolonised Arabic page. Helmi el-Touni and Mohieddin Ellabbad also brought folk ornament and borders back to it.

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More combinations

With Bulaq Naskh Book Printing

With Cairo–Beirut Arab Modernist Book

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