On 20/07/2010 11:07, Joachim Trinkwitz wrote:
Am 20.07.2010 um 10:19 schrieb François Charette:
I have at home a whole book devoted to Arabic typography and font design which
illustrates how one font can provide Arabic and Latin in which both scripts
share most visual features and blend together in harmony. This may be a
legitimate endeavour in the context of advertisement or corporate visual
identity, but for other purposes this objective is quite ill-founded.
> From a just curious person without any knowledge regarding Arabic typography:
why do you (or the specialists) think it's ill-founded?
Because it imposes serious constraints on the type design which often contradict
traditional calligraphic rules, thus resulting in cultural impoverishment. My personal
opinion however is more balanced. There now exist several high quality fonts that achieve
"typographic matchmaking" between Arabic and Latin in remarkable ways:
http://www.khtt.net/page/106/en
I am simply saying that while this a legitimate project, it should not become the dominant
rule. Such fonts have their merits for specific uses. Other typesetting scenarios
(scholarly, religious, etc) are better served with traditional Arabic fonts, whose design
is and should be independent of the actual shapes of Latin letters.
FC
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