Style combination · Pairs well

Bulaq Naskh Book Printing × Islamic Geometric

For a ceremonial edition, crown a plain Bulaq text page with one illuminated headpiece or geometric title frame from the manuscript tradition, and keep the text block itself sober.

From the research on Bulaq (Amiriyya) Naskh Book Printing

Mix them and make something Bulaq Naskh Book Printing Islamic Geometric

A sample layout drawn from the recipe: shapes from Islamic Geometric, 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.

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 Islamic Geometric & Calligraphic Tradition

Type from Islamic Geometric: Brush & pen calligraphy
Type as image
Colour from Bulaq Naskh Book Printing: Monochrome
Light ground
Form from Islamic Geometric: Non-representational
Geometric tessellation
Composition from Bulaq Naskh Book Printing: Classical text block
Central symmetry
Surface from Bulaq Naskh Book Printing: Paper & letterpress bite
Flat

The type

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

Display · Islamic Geometric

Civic

Reem Kufi, standing in for Kufic (including square bannāʾī Kufic)

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

The colours

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

Bulaq (Amiriyya) Naskh Book Printing Islamic Geometric & Calligraphic Tradition

#efe6cf ground · 36%
#171411 ink · 14%
#7a5236 accent · 18%
#c8a046 accent · 14%
#cdbb93 accent · 10%
#a63d2f accent · 8%

As CSS

:root {
  --ground: #efe6cf;
  --ink: #171411;
  --accent-1: #7a5236;
  --accent-2: #c8a046;
  --accent-3: #cdbb93;
  --accent-4: #a63d2f;
  --font-display: "Reem Kufi", 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.

Islamic Geometric & Calligraphic Tradition: Qur'anic verses, the names of God and the Prophet and other sacred phrases must not be cropped, distorted, mirrored, used as texture or printed on floors, footwear or throwaway packaging; have any Arabic-script text read and approved by a fluent reader or calligrapher. Abstract geometric pattern is far less sensitive than script, but credit the traditions and makers it comes from.