Style combination · Pairs well

Machine-Age Simplified Arabic Type × Roman-like Thai Typography

A parallel machine-age simplification of another script; both strip traditional details to an even, rational line, and both stayed contested for long reading.

From the research on Machine-Age Simplified Arabic Type

Mix them and make something Machine-Age Simplified Arabic Type Roman-like Thai Typography

A sample layout drawn from the recipe: shapes from Machine-Age Simplified Arabic Type, their arrangement from Machine-Age Simplified Arabic Type, the finish from Machine-Age Simplified Arabic Type. 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.

Machine-Age Simplified Arabic Type Roman-like Thai Typography (modern loopless Thai)

Type from Roman-like Thai Typography: Grotesque & neo-grotesque
Geometric sans
Colour from Roman-like Thai Typography: Flat fields
Limited spot colours
Form from Machine-Age Simplified Arabic Type: Rectilinear
Ornament-free
Composition from Machine-Age Simplified Arabic Type: Column grid
Horror vacui
Surface from Machine-Age Simplified Arabic Type: Paper & letterpress bite
Flat

The type

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

Display · Roman-like Thai Typography

Orbit

Inter Tight, standing in for Helvetica, the Latin model for Manoptica

Text · Machine-Age Simplified Arabic Type

Arabic redrawn for the machine rather than the reed pen. From 1947 reformers cut down the four positional forms of each letter: Nasri Khattar's Unified Arabic gave every letter one shape, set apart like Latin type in its detached print form, and Linotype's Simplified Arabic (1959, made with Beirut's al-Hayat) mostly two, so a newspaper fount fitted one 90-channel magazine; ASV Codar in Morocco gave the vowels letters of their own. Flat-based, even and with few ligatures, it became the common face of Arab newspapers and lives on in Windows system fonts.

Newsreader; Machine-Age Simplified Arabic Type used Mrowa-Linotype Simplified Arabic (Kamel Mrowa, Nabih Jaroudi and Walter Tracy for Linotype & Machinery; Series 2 with 3, 1959) and its redesign by Jaroudi, Series 8 with 9 (1962), named Yakout in 1967 and Intertype Abridged Arabic

The colours

The ground and leading colours come from Roman-like Thai Typography, with a counter-accent from Machine-Age Simplified Arabic Type. The ink reads on the ground at 4.5:1 or more.

Machine-Age Simplified Arabic Type Roman-like Thai Typography (modern loopless Thai)

#f6f5f1 ground · 36%
#141414 ink · 14%
#f5b800 accent · 18%
#1d4f9e accent · 14%
#d6242a accent · 10%
#cfc6b0 accent · 8%

As CSS

:root {
  --ground: #f6f5f1;
  --ink: #141414;
  --accent-1: #f5b800;
  --accent-2: #1d4f9e;
  --accent-3: #d6242a;
  --accent-4: #cfc6b0;
  --font-display: "Inter Tight", sans-serif;
  --font-text: "Newsreader", serif;
}

Use it with care

Machine-Age Simplified Arabic Type: Arabic is a living script and the script of the Qur'an, and simplified type was long resisted for books, government work and the Qur'an, so do not set Qur'anic verses, hadith or the names of God and the Prophet in reduced or detached forms, or use them as texture. Set Arabic right to left with correct joining, never pass off the disconnected letters of a software error as Unified Arabic, have every word read by a fluent reader, and do not present script reform as the correction of a deficient script: the Academy of the Arabic Language in Cairo rejected ASV Codar in 1958, and the type historian Titus Nemeth calls the survival of simplified forms in digital fonts a legacy of technical compromise that digital type no longer needs.

Roman-like Thai Typography (modern loopless Thai): Loopless Thai is contested inside Thailand. Researchers such as Rachapoom Punsongserm find it harder to read in small, bold or justified body text and less legible across viewing distances than a Thai universal-design face, with letters that can be taken for Latin (พ.ร.บ. can read as W.S.U.), so keep it mostly to display sizes and set body, legal and small interface text in a looped face. Critics also see it as eroding the looped forms that mark Thai identity, and Cadson Demak, which popularised it, has since turned back towards looped faces. Have every Thai word checked by a fluent reader, since image models invent or garble Thai letters, and never pass shaped Latin letters off as Thai.

The two styles

1947–present · Middle East & North Africa Machine-Age Simplified Arabic Type Arabic redrawn for the machine rather than the reed pen. From 1947 reformers cut down the four positional forms of each letter: Nasri Khattar's Unified Arabic gave every letter one shape, set apart like Latin type in its detached print form, and Linotype's Simplified Arabic (1959, made with Beirut's al-Hayat) mostly two, so a newspaper fount fitted one 90-channel magazine; ASV Codar in Morocco gave the vowels letters of their own. Flat-based, even and with few ligatures, it became the common face of Arab newspapers and lives on in Windows system fonts.

Oversized, heavy Thai lettering fills an off-white portrait poster in two tightly stacked lines. The upper line is bright red and the lower line is dark green.

1973–present · Southeast Asia Roman-like Thai Typography (modern loopless Thai) A Thai type genre that drops the head loops of most Thai letters, so the script reads as an even sans like Helvetica. Older loopless forms exist, but this line began with Manop Srisomporn's Manoptica, drawn from 1973 for dry transfer; Manop faces spread through advertising and road signs, and Cadson Demak's corporate fonts (AIS's among them) carried it into branding and screens. Since 1999 it has also been set as body text in magazines, screens and operating systems, which remains controversial; families now ship looped and loopless Thai side by side, mostly recommending loopless for display.

More combinations

With Machine-Age Simplified Arabic Type

With Roman-like Thai Typography

Every style combination