What is Arab? Who is the Arabic man?
Who is the Arabic woman?
Who is the Arabic letter? Ask these questions to any Arab person and you will get answers diverse beyond imagination. The Arabic alphabet, as the Latin alphabet, originated from the Phoenician alphabet. It took a long journey filled with grace and passion. It got dignified, mystified, personified, and then mutilated. The six original cursive scripts, Riqa’, Tawqi’, Muhaqqaq, Rayhani, Naskh, and Thulth, highly appreciated for their elegance, beauty and sophistication are being gradually replaced by Arabic rigid “sans serifs”. To understand the recent development of Arabic typefaces and logotypes, one should take a look at the history of the Arabic script, its usage, and aesthetics. As graphic design and advertising are more and more integrated in the Arab society, whether in the Gulf, North Africa or Levant, different typography disciplines are emerging. Typefaces are undergoing “latinization”. They are enduring drastic changes to suit the English letters when used in bilingual projects, hence breaking all connection with their own history and origins.
Arabic words are written using Latin letters for digital usages. Some missing phonemes are being replaced by numbers.
What’s the duty of an Arabic designer?
What’s the future of the Arabic Alphabet?
Ghenwa:
ReplyDeleteWhat did you meant when you said "Arabic words are written using Latin letters for digital usages"?
I'm talking about the Arabic for chat, emails and sms.
ReplyDeleteLike assalamu 3alaykoum
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arabic_chat_alphabet