Stylogenyin the style of Contemporary Arabic & Dual-Script Type Design

Rational modernism · 2004–present · Middle East & North Africa, Western Europe, Global / networked

Contemporary Arabic & Dual-Script Type Design

Also known as Arabic type modernism, Bilingual Arabic–Latin typography, Dual-script type design, Typographic Matchmaking

A twenty-first-century type culture that redraws Arabic as a family matched to a Latin companion in weight, proportion and contrast, so the two scripts can share a page, screen or sign as equals. The Khatt Foundation's Typographic Matchmaking (2007) did much to launch it, and foundries such as 29LT and TPTQ Arabic carried it forward. It favours low-contrast Kufi- and Naskh-derived forms, a firm horizontal baseline and mirrored grids for identities, wayfinding and interfaces.

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A bilingual Latin and Arabic type specimen sheet on an off-white background features oversized black Nūr and نور lettering, gray sample headlines, and four font weights. Fine rules divide character sets, five circular colour swatches, letter-construction diagrams, and sample sizes, with restrained red and teal accents.
AI-generated by Stylogeny from the style’s design choices. Not a real or historical work.

Use it with care

Arabic must be set with correct contextual shaping and right-to-left direction; disconnected or reversed letters are a common and offensive error. Have every Arabic word checked by a fluent reader, avoid setting Qur'anic verses or the names of God and the Prophet as decorative texture, and commission or credit Arabic type designers rather than deriving Arabic glyphs from a Latin font.

01

How it works

  • Design the Arabic and the Latin as one family, matching weight, proportion, stroke contrast and colour on the page so neither script looks like an afterthought.
  • Build the Arabic on low-contrast Kufi or simplified Naskh structures with a firm horizontal baseline, and reduce vertical stacking and ligatures for screens and signs.
  • Give both scripts equal hierarchy by mirroring the grid for right-to-left and left-to-right text rather than subordinating one to the other.
  • Develop the Arabic with native-script designers and calligraphers instead of deriving it mechanically from the Latin.
  • Keep the system ornament-free and rational so the letters themselves carry a contemporary Arab identity.

The Khatt Foundation (Amsterdam, 2004), Dutch and Reading type-design programmes, and foundries and studios in Beirut, the Gulf and Europe

02

Its design choices

From Stylogeny’s vocabulary of design choices: defining choices make the style, characteristic ones are usual, occasional ones turn up now and then.

Layout & composition
Space & hierarchy
Typography
Colour
Form & shape
Surface & texture
Ornament
Imagery
Medium & production
Tone & intent
Avoids
Abundant decoration, Ornamented display, Tight setting, Painterly brushwork, Horror vacui, Painterly illustration

Palette

  • #f7f6f2
  • #141414
  • #8c8c8c
  • #c1272d
  • #0f6e6e

Typefaces

  • Frutiger Arabic and Helvetica Arabic

    Nadine Chahine

  • 29LT UA Neo B and UA Neo N

    after Nasri Khattar's Unified Arabic

  • Qandus

    Khatt Foundation; Latin, Arabic and Neo-Tifinagh

  • Low-contrast Kufi- and Naskh-derived Arabic text sans

Known for

  • Khatt Foundation, founded by Huda Smitshuijzen AbiFarès

    Amsterdam, 2004

  • Typographic Matchmaking (2007)

    Gerard Unger & Nadine Chahine, Martin Majoor & Pascal Zoghbi, Lucas de Groot & Mounir Al Shaarani, Peter Bilak & Tarek Atrissi, Fred Smeijers & Lara Assouad Khoury

  • TPTQ Arabic foundry

    Peter Bilak & Kristyan Sarkis

  • 29LT (Pascal Zoghbi), UA Neo B and UA Neo N, revivals of Nasri Khattar's Unified Arabic

    patent filed 1947, granted 1950

  • Nadine Chahine, Arabic versions of Frutiger, Helvetica and Zapfino for Linotype; Koufiya, an early simultaneously designed Arabic–Latin face

03

Make something in this style

Say what you need, and Stylogeny’s image studio draws it from Contemporary Arabic & Dual-Script Type Design’s design choices and checks it against them. It takes about a minute, and you get a link to share.

Rule out a choice, read the prompt, or blend in another style: take this brief to Mix styles.

04

Where it comes from, and what it’s close to

Before it

The style it grew out of, and the styles it borrowed from.

This styleContemporary Arabic & Dual-Script Type Design2004–present · Middle East & North Africa, Western Europe, Global / networked

After it

The styles that grew out of it.

No later style in the atlas grew out of it yet.

Alike in its design choices

Styles that make many of the same choices, related or not, besides those above.

05

Real works

Artefacts in museums, libraries and archives that show the style, linked at their source.

06

Sources

  1. Wikipedia, 'Khatt Foundation' (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Khatt_Foundation)
  2. Typotheque, 'New book: Typographic Matchmaking' (2007) (https://www.typotheque.com/blog/new-book-typographic-matchmaking)
  3. Works That Work 6, 'Unified Arabic' (https://worksthatwork.com/6/unified-arabic)
  4. 29LT, 'Nasri Khattar' (https://www.29lt.com/designer/nasri-khattar/)

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