A group of Arab and Dutch designers have taken multiculturalism to the next level by designing the first bilingual Arabic/Latin fonts. This means the font encompasses all 29 Arabic letters and 26 Latin ones, presenting them in a visually coherent way so the eye can switch between one and another – assuming you can read Arabic, that is! It’s easier to show than tell, look at this:

In any font, the letters ‘match’ each other – they have the same proportions, curves and angles. These designers have made Arabic accompaniments to established Latin scripts, so the letters match in the same way. Look at the top row, you’ll see that the “i” and the long thin one on the right (that’s an aleph, by the way) have the exact same little ticks at the top. If you look at the bottom row, you’ll see the letters have the same proportions, that’s why they fit on those pink lines. Nobody’s ever done anything like this before, and to an Arabic student like myself, it’s absolutely stunning.

This, and other fonts, were unveiled in 2007 by the Khatt Foundation in the first part of its Typographic Matchmaking Project. The Foundation aims to develop Arabic design, focusing on Arabic typography as the link between the countries of Middle East and North Africa. As the founder Huda Smitshuijzen AbiFarès explained, “We see the Arabic script as the simplest and most abstract building block of all the applied arts in the Arab and Islamic cultures (and an emblematic and defining visual identifier or common ground of these diverse cultures), and we aim at keeping it at the heart of all our activities.”

In 2009, the institute completed the second phase of the project, Typographic Matchmaking in the City which focused on the urban built environment. It saw Dutch and Arab typographers and architects working together to create bilingual scripts from scratch and other designs. There’s a book, a film and an exhibition that toured several countries into 2010.

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