ALWatan Headlines Arabic Typeface

AlWatan typeface is a corporate Arabic headlines typeface for Al Watan newspaper in Saudi Arabia KSA. The font is exclusive for 1 year for the newspaper starting from 2009. The brief was to create a new, young and crispy Arabic type that will appeal to young Arab readers.

Specs of the type:
AlWatan Headlines is an elegant and sturdy Arabic typeface based on the Naskh mastari style with a medium contrast, condensed letterforms, strong baseline, large Loop/Tooth heights and short Ascender/Descender heights. Traditional pen stoke are preserved but drawn in a modern feel. This characteristic of the font can be clearly seen in the “heh”, “waw”, “lam” and other glyphs. The letterforms are balanced with the heavy baseline unlike old styled headlines fonts where the baseline is too thick and the letterforms are so weak and light.

Credits of the involved companies that were behind the creation of the new design and layout of the newspaper:

• The new design/ layout of the newspaper was created by Ryan Bowman from Shakeup Media, UK.

• AlWatan Headlines typeface is used for the headlines and main titles in the newspaper and it is created by Pascal Zoghbi.

• TheSans Arabic typeface is used for the secondary titles in the newspaper and it is created by Lucas Fonts.

• The new masthead was created by Saatchi & Saatchi, Beirut.