3D square Kufi workshop at LAU [ Lebanese American University]

Khaldoun Hamzeh’s work 3D Pattern, Word: 2ahlan

Khaldoun Hamzeh’s work 2D Pattern, Word: 2ahlan

The brief of this workshop was the same as the “Vernacular Kufi Workshop” but it was taken one step further of transforming the 2D square Kufi patterns into 3D objects.

Class pin-up and discussion

Linda Aridi’s work 3D Pattern, Word: ma ma32oulé

Linda Aridi’s work 2D Pattern, Word: ma ma32oulé

Creating the pattern from the module on the light table.

May Shaaban’s work 3D Pattern, Word: 2al 7amid lil lah

May Shaaban’s work 2D Pattern, Word: 2al 7amid lil lah

Sketching the pattern on tracing paper after module is finalized. Word: kteer jou3ané.

Jubran Elias’s work 3D Pattern, Word: kifak tamém

Jubran Elias’s work 2D Pattern, Word: kifak tamém

Constructing 3D pattern using separate small modules.

Creating square module on millimeters paper using the grid system.

Reem Itani’s 3D pattern using squarish modules to construct the whole pattern.

Interested more into 3D Square kufi applications? Check out the following links:

Har Design Kufi Table:

Sakal Kufi Project and survey:

Alef Magazine 6th issue is out and the Alef Caps fonts are used in it. Here is some inside pages showing the font in use.

You can read more about the Alef Caps fonts on my website or the previous post about the font.

Square Kufi patterns are often used in mosques for Qur’anic verses or Islamic sayings. It is very rare to see square kufi patterns created out of Christian bible verses or Christian sayings…

Last Sunday I was in the protestant church and I noticed this amazing big wooden cross created from square kufi pattern.

A Lebanese Christian Arabic calligrapher named “Istfén” created the square kufi pattern in 1995.

I did not have my camera with me. So I took some pics with my mobile cam. I will try to take some better pictures and post them instead of these.

“Bukra Extra Bold” is an Arabic display typeface for “Ibn Battuta Mall” in Dubai. The English slogans and ads in the mall were done uses the Latin font “Futura Extra Bold”. They asked for an Arabic font that has the same feel and sturdiness as “Futura Extra bold”.

Since Futura is a simplified geometric Sans Serif, I decided the base the Arabic companion on the Kufi script and try to simplify the letterforms as much as I can and make it young and fresh as Futura. The Arabic font had to work with the capitals of Futura Extra Bold, so I had to experiment with how much I can make the decsenders of the Arabic type short, the loop and tooth heights big and the pen stroke thick enough without clotting the counter spaces of the letterforms.

Bukra Eaxtra Bold typeset back to back with Futura Extra Bold CAPITALS.

A small workshop in the “Type Design” course at NDU involving the creation of hybrid Latin words using basic letter components from Arabic letter-forms. English and French words created from Arabic letters.

“bonjour” word created by Michel Issa

Hang-up of some of the words created during the workshop.
The words from Left to right: “amanda” by Amanda El Kaddissi, “Karen” by Karen Toutounji, “Zeina” by Zeina Baaklini, “Sabaho” by Celine Doumit, ” Maria” by Mariam Der Mosessian, “Pamela Ego” by pamela Ego, “Joanna” by Joanna Assouad, “Rana” by Rana El Maddad, “Jad Eid” by Jad Eid.

sketch book of Stephanie Eid. The words from top to bottom are: Pascal, Leban and Elie.

“Zeina” created by Zeina Aoun.

Sketches of Jad Eid

“Joanna” created by Joanna

“Pascal” created by Stephanie on her sketchbook

Dissecting letter-forms into basic components and finding glyphs that share similar based components in their construction:

Sketches of Celine Doumit

Sketches of Joanna Assouad

A beautiful film by filmmaker and musician Premjit Ramachandran on the Musalman, perhaps the last remaining handwritten newspaper in the world.

Al Rouiya is a corporate Arabic titling typeface for “Al Rouiah” newspaper in Kuwait. The font is exclusive for 5 years for “Al Rouiah” newspaper in Kuwait starting from February 2008. The newspaper needed a new, young and crispy type that will appeal to young readers.

Al Rouiya is an elegant and sturdy Arabic typeface based on the Naskh 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 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.

A pdf of the main page of the newspaper with the type in use.

A Drop Initial Caps typeface for Alef Magazine. Alef Caps is a pixel font inspired from the arabesque “Msharabiyé” eight-star shape. It will be first in use in the 6th issue of the magazine. The magazine asked for a Roman Drop Intial Caps type inspired from Arabic culture. I worked on this type in collaboration with Huba AbiFares.

Alef Caps is a pixel font inspired from the arabesque “Msharabiyé” eight-star shape. It is a Mono-spaced (all the letters have the same width) with seven pixels in width and eight pixels in height. Three fonts are present in the type-family. 1.Alef Caps A, the pixel letters are reserved out on an eight-star shape serving as a background for the letters, 2. Alef Caps B, the letters are created from the eight-star pixel matrix and 3. Alef Caps C, same as “Alef Caps B” but the negative space is filled with the inner circle of the eight-star pixel. All three fonts are based on the same concept, but each gives a slightly different feel when typeset. The font is intended for use as a Drop Initial Caps and not for Titling, though some words with specific letter combination look nice when typeset with Alef Caps.

You can download the font for free from my website. Enjoy ;)

Alef Caps A:

Alef Caps B:

Alef Caps C:

The Pixel Type concept was proposed to the client alongside two other concepts. The first concept was a Latin type inspired from Floral Kufi with ornaments around the letters, and the second concept was a Latin type inspired from the Square Kufi patterns and Arabesques.

Here is some outlined and sketched letters that i worked on for the presentation:

Latin type inspired from Floral Kufi

Latin type inspired from the Square Kufi

The New design of “Emarat Al Youm” newspaper in Dubai is out with its’ headlines set in “Imarat Headlines” typeface that i have created for them alongside “TheMix Arabic” which is used for the newspaper sections titles.

p.s. The Logotype is the same as in the old Layout of the newspaper. I did not do the logotype.

You can see the fonts in use on the online e-paper version of “Emarat Al Youm” newspaper. And if you live in Dubai, you can just buy the newspaper. ;)

For more info about the fonts, you can read the previous posts about “Imarat Headlines” and “TheMix Arabic”.

Here are some snap shoots from the new design with “Imarat Headlines” & “TheMix Arabic” in use. The new Layout was designed by ‘InnovAtion Media Consulting’. You can also read about the project on their website.

This pic is a close up from a page from the newspaper where they explain the new changes in the design and typefaces. Here is the description of the new headlines font, “Imarat Headlines”, that replaced the old one. The phrase translate to english as: “The newspaper chose a new typeface that is modern and active”.

Here is some other snap shoots of the newspaper.

The two typefaces: 1. Arabic “Al Rouiya Headlines” and 2. Latin “Alif Arabesque Pixel” are my latest projects that i am working on at the moment. I will write more about the new typefaces when they are published.

Happy New Year and may 2008 be a fruitful and successful year to all.

Through out November and December in Beirut, I had giving : 1. a lecture entitled “29letters” about my Arabic type project and type design process at AUB, 2. a presentation about EL HEMA project alongside the Arabic team (Wael, Kj, Maria & Raya) at NDU Zouk and NDU North, and 3. took part of the event, lecture and exhibition of the “Khatt Fonts: Matchmaking Amsterdam – Beirut” with Huda Abifares and the Arabic team.

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Khatt Fonts: Matchmaking Beirut – Amsterdam (Art Lounge)

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29letters Lecture (AUB)

Movable Metal Letters are just amazing. [Especially for type lovers like me ;)]

I have recently bought Arabic and Latin movable metal type. They were for an old Arabic printing press in the Shouf area in Mount Lebanon. The owner of the movable letters wanted to sale them as trash, and I was lucky to find out about them and save the valuable metal letters from being melted done or simply trashed.

9 Arabic fonts and 6 Latin fonts was what I got. Along with one Composing Stick.
What is amazing is that the Arabic mattress is twice as big as the Latin one.

For the Arabic, I got one Arabic Naskh typeface in 8pt, 12pt, 24pt Regular and Bold.
For the Latin I have Helvetica Italic in 48 pts, one Serif type named Romine and one Sans Serif type named Europe. Each of Romine and Europe are in 12 pt and 18pt.

I made a wooden closet for the Latin mattresses based on the traditional closet shape for the drawers…
 As for the Arabic mattresses, I am still thinking what is the best way to store or display them. I am thinking of a metallic shelves system to put the Arabic huge mattresses in since the wood will not be strong enough the hold them.

I am now in the process of cleaning them from dust, so this is taking me hell of a time. Whenever I have some time off or need to take a brake from work, I clean some letters.

My next step is to find and buy the traditional printing press, but this will take more time for me to put aside the price amount of it…


Then maybe open a small press for educational use where students can come and typeset type. And for sure I can use I to make some prints with it…

I would also like to know the names of the Arabic fonts and know their origins. When and where they were casted? Where were they before they got to the Shouf press?…

The 12th issue of Idpure Swiss magazine of graphic design and visual creation was dedicated on young type designers work in the glob. I was the young Arabic type design interviewed for the 12th issue of the magazine alongside Nikola Djurek, Kai Bernau, Anton Koovit, Christian Schwartz, Frederik Berlaen, Xavier Dupré.

Snap shot of two spread from my section in the magazine.

The questioned asked where about my own Arabic type design work and my view on the Arabic type industry and market at the present moment. i will post the interview on my blog after a while.

El-Hema wins the VISUAL IDENTITY PRIZE at DE NEDERLANDSE DES1GNPRIJ2EN3 The NETHERLANDS DESIGN PRIZE.

Congratulations for the Arabic and Dutch team who worked on the project (Willem Velthoven, Pascal Zoghbi, Wael Morcos, KJ Apelian, Raya Tueny, Maria Hakim, Abrar Al-Musallam, Kristin Maurer, Vele Anderen & Marieke Bijster), for Madiamatic and The Khatt Foundation.

To read more about El Hema Project you can link to following web-pages:

Mediamatic wins Dutch Design Prize 2007 for El HEMA!

we WON the DUTCH DESIGN AWARD!

A turning point for Arabic typography and design

EL HEMA at Mediamatic, Amsterdam

IT DOES FEEL HEMA!

Imarat is an Arabic newspaper type family consisting of “Imarat Headlines” & “Imarat Text”. “Imarat Headlines” is a display type for use in the headlines and titling of a newspaper, while “Imarat Text” is for the copy text of the newspaper. “Imarat Headlines” will be exclusive for 3 years for “Emarat Al Youm” newspaper in Dubai starting from 2008. The newspaper needed a new, young and crispy headlines type that will appeal to their young readers. You can see the font in use on the online e-paper version of “Emarat Al Youm” newspaper.

Imarat Headlines
Imarat Headlines is a young, strong and bold Arabic typeface based on the Neo-Naskh style (Naskh Mastari). It is a crispy type with a medium contrast (neither high nor low in contrast; in-between) and condensed letters to make long headline sentences fit on the tabloid. The stroke weight is balanced in the letters and not like other headline typefaces where the baseline is so thick and the letters are week and appear like small upper and lower strokes. Imarat Headlines has a strong baseline and the letters sit strongly on it without making the baseline thicker then the letters by themselves. What also gives Imarat Headlines the sturdy look is the very large Loop and tooth heights and short ascender and descender heights.

Imarat text
Imarat text is still in development and is intended for use in newspaper copy text. It is a condensed flowing Naskh style typeface with short ascenders and descenders in order to be set with a small inter-linear space.

TheMix Arabic is one of the five new Arabic typefaces that was included in the Typographic Matchmaking Project organized by the Khatt Foundation. Lucas de Groot and Mouneer Al-Shaarani initially designed TheMix Arabic, but when the type needed to be finalized and transformed into a proper Arabic type, I was asked by Huda AbiFares to undertake the font from this point on since Mouneer is a calligrapher and not an Arabic type designer, and Lucas does not know the Arabic script.

Lucas designed the Bold version of the type. I finalized the Bold design by modifying some glyphs, spacing and encoding/scripting the font. When the Bold was finalized, I developed the Regular weight out of the bold and had the TheMixArab Regular and Bold ready for the launching of the Typographic Matchmaking book. During finalization of the fonts, a design agency contacted Lucas and informed him that they would like to use the type as a display type for the young arabic newspaper for section titling. So now I am in the process of developing the Black and the Light weights for the newspaper.

I was contacted by Don R. Kari after he saw the Lebanese Graffiti post on my blog. Don Kari is a german graffiti artist. He and his german graffiti colleagues initiated a project in Cuba and now they want to do the project in Beirut. You can have a look on the graffiti project in Cuba at the following link: CubaBrazil

The main idea is to deal with Arabic and Latin script in public space. Don asked me for contacts of Arabic Calligraphers and Arabic graffiti artist. I have already put him in contact with my arabic calligraphy friends, but for sure he needs more contacts.
If any Arabic calligrapher or Graffiti artist (or if someone knows a good Arabic calligrapher or Graffiti artists) is interested in this project, then please write a comment on this post or contact me directly via email.

August was a great experience for five young Arabic graphic designers (fresh graduates) from the Arab world and I. The 24th of August was the “Khatt Kufi Kaffiya” symposium on Arabic Visual Culture, the official launching of the Khatt Foundation website and the launching and book signing of the Typographic Matchmaking book. Alongside these events, Mediamatic initiated an exhibition to team up Arabic typographers with Dutch design and culture. The exhibition was to create an Arabic version of the famous HEMA Dutch stores.

Design of the White Scarf by Kj using Sada Bold. The text on it is the lyrics or the song “YA Maré’ 3al Taya7een” for Fairuz.

Wael, Kj, Maria, Ray, Abi (the 5 young Arabic graphic designers) and I were invited by Mediamatic to come to Amsterdam for 6 weeks before the opening of the EL HEMA exhibition to work on the making of this exhibition. The aim of the exhibition was the put the 5 new Arabic typefaces of the TTM project (Fedra Arabic, Sada, Fresco Arabic, BigVesta Arabic and TheMix Arabic) to applications (items and products) that are going to be sold in the EL HEMA exhibition; and to create a culture awareness and exchange between the Arabic and Dutch cultures. Some of the products produced were Chocolate letters, Chocolate bars, Chocolate sprinkles, Wine bottles, Coffee bags, T-shirts, Socks, Underwear, Scarves, Djalabas, Condoms and other stuff.

The shelves of red wine bottles designed by Abi using Sada.

I was the design director and manager of the Arabic design team. It was a great experience to manage a big project like this and gain experience from the collaboration of the Arabic team with the Mediamatic team. Beside our team we had a fashion designer “Maika”, photographer “Marieke”, interior designer, exhibition organizer “Vari” and journalist “Joann” (and for sure not to forget the Directors of Mediamatic “Willem” and “Jans” and all the volunteers how helped). All of us collaborated to make the EL HEMA exhibition come true.

The Chocolate bars designed by KJ using TheMix Arabic and Sada.

Design of the Chocolate letters pack designed by Wael using Fedra Arabic.

Design of the coffee pack designed by kj using BigVista Arabic.

Design of Condoms pack by Abi using TheMix Arabic.

Design of the Djalaba pack by Raya using TheMix Arabic.

Design of a women’s underwear designed by Wael using Sada.

What was also interesting that besides doing the design work, we also modeled for the photo shoots and the fashion show. That was fun.

During the development of the El HEMA exhibition, the press took a great interest in the project and almost everyday we had journalists from Newspapers, television stations and radio stations come to mediamatic and interview us and have a look on what we are doing. Below is a list of some of the articles and interviews written about the EL HEMA on the following links:

Newspapers:
De Pres
Trouw
NRC Handelsblad
Amsterdam Weekly

Photo of the article in DePers newspaper.

Photo of several Newspapers with articles about El HEMA.

Televison:
Channel 3
Channel At5
Zoomin tv

Wael speaking about the white scarf with Fairuz song “Ya Mari’ 3al tawahin” on it designed by Kj using Sada Bold.

Kj speaking about the Chocolate bars that he has designed using Fedra Arabic and Sada.

The opening of the El HEMA exhibition was a great success. Most of the products were sold out by Sunday (which is only two days from the opening). The Dutch people and tourists of Amsterdam just loved the Arabic adaptation of the HEMA products to Arabic and were interested with the new Arabic typefaces displayed in the environmental design of the exhibition and the Design of the products by themselves. A queue line was building up all day long on the entry of the exhibition. That was great. ☺

Opening day. Huge success.

Me wearing the white scarf with Sada on it. :)

The El Hema t-shirts.

As for the Arabic fonts that i was involved with:
1. I designed SADA as a companion type of Seria which is designed by Martin Majoor.
2. I finalized the design of TheMix Arabic Bold after Lucas de Groot and developed the TheMixArab Regular.

For more info and links about the EL HEMA exhibition, please have a look on the following links:
EL HEMA on ThePlace website
El Hema grand opening a success
El HEMA first days: huge success
El Hema late nite
El Hema – Exhibition / Store
Arabising El Hemame

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All the pictures in this post were taken by Wael & KJ.

On the 28th and 29th of August I gave a workshop for non-Arab participants during the El Hema Exhibition at the Mediamatic Workshop area.

You can read more about the workshop in the following links:
Kufi Workshop in Amsterdam at Mediamatic, Amsterdam.
Brief intro of the Kufi Workshop

Giving some comments on the primarily kufi patterns.

Here are some pictures. Enjoy.

The lecture about Kufi before the workshop started.

Square Kufi down by mosaic and pixel games

The creative and ambitious young girl in the workshop.

and the other participants:

some square Kufi

Square kufi down with Latin Letters

and here are some Floral Kufi for the fast learning participants.