Stylogeny combining Bulaq Naskh Book Printing × Neoclassical Book Typography

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Style combination · Pairs well

Bulaq Naskh Book Printing × Neoclassical Book Typography

In an Arabic–Latin edition, face a justified, rule-framed Naskh page with a centred transitional or Didone page; both make type, rules and margins the only luxury.

From the research on Bulaq (Amiriyya) Naskh Book Printing

Mix them and make something Bulaq Naskh Book Printing Neoclassical Book Typography

NOTICEBulaqNaskh Book × Neoclassical Book
A sample layout drawn from the recipe: shapes from Bulaq Naskh Book Printing, 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 Neoclassical Book Typography

Type from Neoclassical Book Typography
Colour from Neoclassical Book Typography
Form from Bulaq Naskh Book Printing
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 · Neoclassical Book Typography

Notice

Bodoni Moda, standing in for Bodoni (Giambattista Bodoni, Parma)

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

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The colours

The ground and leading colours come from Neoclassical Book Typography, 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 Neoclassical Book Typography

  • #f6f1e4 ground · 39%
  • #141210 ink · 15%
  • #a32d24 accent · 20%
  • #7a5236 accent · 15%
  • #c9bfa8 accent · 11%

As CSS

:root {
  --ground: #f6f1e4;
  --ink: #141210;
  --accent-1: #a32d24;
  --accent-2: #7a5236;
  --accent-3: #c9bfa8;
  --font-display: "Bodoni Moda", serif;
  --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. Large rust-red serif capitals spell “THE QUIET HOURS” in three centered lines on a textured cream background. A thin double-line border frames the cover, with small floral ornaments and horizontal rules above and below the title. 1757–1830 · Western Europe, Southern Europe, Central Europe Neoclassical Book Typography The Enlightenment book stripped of Renaissance woodcut decoration. Baskerville's transitional types on smooth wove paper led to the high-contrast Didones of Bodoni in Parma and the Didot family in Paris, set in centred, generously leaded pages under title pages of letterspaced capitals. Type, proportion and white space became the only luxury, and this page is the root of later Didone glamour in fashion mastheads and luxury branding.

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More combinations

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With Neoclassical Book Typography

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