Anatomy of an Arabetic Type Design

ABSTRACT Arabetic type design, like type design in general, should not be limited by rigid rules, other than those advocating open choice and user options. But as with all design fields, highlighting certain principles and guidelines is crucial to realizing a successful project. In an Arabetic font design environment, such guidelines and principles should reveal deeper understanding of various script's visual and behavioral defining characteristics rather than mere traditional calligraphic or handwriting norms. A main goal of this study is to emphasize that designing Arabetic fonts is much easier than portrayed, and designers of all backgrounds can be more involved designing rather than deciphering complexities. Classifying Arabic as complex may add challenge and thrill to a project, but can unfairly harm a flexible and powerful script. According to their connecting behavior in the traditional model, Arabetic letters are two types: restricted or unrestricted. Based on this and other observations, the study provides a solid design model, free of the restraints of the chaotic four shapes per letter model widely used today. It does that through a systematic analysis of the Arabic script rather than its historic calligraphic flavors. A Mutamathil type style font, Mehdi, is used by this study for visual illustration. But the model provided is equally valid for the design and implementation of any other Arabetic font including multiple glyphs per letter fonts. The choice of Mehdi is neither arbitrary nor biased given that its design also implements a complementary alternative input method, NAIM. Designing an Arabetic type requires adequate understanding and exposure to the original Arabic script visual characteristics and letterforms. Other derived scripts have added or subtracted letters and shapes but, more or less, they still share with Arabic its overall visual characteristics. One may point out that a derived script, like Kurdish, has different visual characteristics than Arabic due to different utilization of shapes. But the key point is that it is still using the same shapes. The absolute majority of derived scripts differentiate their new letters by adding various diacritic marks above or below original Arabic letter body forms, or use the same glyphs for different scriptural tasks. Except for a couple of cases (i.e. Urdu Ha u06Cl) they have not added completely new body shapes unknown in the original script. Arabic is the minimum common denominator of most derived scripts and therefore it is recommended, but not required, to start an Arabetic type project with it. This essay will analyze the Arabic script in detail but will point out - when applicable - how other derived scripts relate to it. The design model outlined here does not adhere to the doctrine of the usual four glyphs per letter model in use today, but it is fully compatible with it. This study will present the new model through analysis and visual illustrations. First, it will examine the alphabet, then it will discuss its visual defining characteristics, and finally it will provide, with the aid of typographic charts, an anatomical view of shapes and sets along with specific design recommendations. Needless to say, creating Arabetic fonts and fonts in general, require software tools and related technical expertise whose discussion goes beyond the scope of this work. WHAT IS AN ARABIC ALPHABET? To design a typeface for a specific script, one should be familiar with that script's definitive alphabet. Historically, letters and shapes of the Arabic alphabet were identified and grouped in several different ways based on vocal mouth source, geography, shape similarity or other criteria. The number of letters varied, some listed 29 letters while others listed only 28. Differences are primarily about whether to include soft 'AIiF (u0627), 'Lam Alif' ligature or 'Hamzah' (u0621). In modern typography, the Unicode standards introduced yet another grouping of Arabic letters. …