Persian (Arabic) typeface that works as a new alphabet!

Shahab Siavash

Hello,

First, I want to mention that I am a graphic designer and typographer. I was writing articles and books in the past few years about graphic and type design. Been awarded as a critic and have had several exhibitions in Iran and other countries. I’m usually into designing new modern Persian fonts, you may call them “fantasy” or “display” or… The name is not important. My well-known typeface was the first Persian grunge typeface (2005) which was featured on Behance in 2009 and has been published in several books and websites.

But today I’m going to talk about this (the attachments) typeface and why & how I designed it.


We have all seen the very big difference between Latin and Persian alphabets. One has vertical, almost isometric, mono-spaced letters and the other one has ups and downs on and off the baseline, also different weights and widths are another issue. When we use these two alphabets in a design, letters doesn’t match. But we accept that, because there was no other choice.


So, years ago, I decided to do something about this and I realised that I should change the Persian alphabet in a modern typographic way. I did these things:

1- Removed the connection between the letters. [All Persian (Arabic) letters are connected to each other unlike the Latin letters.] To do this I made the letters vertical oriented and separated from each other.

2- Once you decide to accomplish number 1, you realise that you should design the letters from scratch. So I did. Every single letter in this Persian alphabet is redesigned to fit this idea. But all of them are inspired by the original letters. Any Persian (Arabic) parson can read them. This is a typographic approach to design a modern Persian typeface.

3- After doing all of that, now there is no need to have 4 (or 2) forms for each letter. (Initial, medial, final and isolated glyphs) Therefore, this font performs like a Latin typeface and shows one form for each letter.

4- I also wanted to do this in an isometric and mono-spaced style. There are no angles except 90 degrees. I too, changed some of the Latin letters to reach this goal. (I want to mention that this is a new style to design Persian fonts and can be improved or changed through time by others in different ways.)

5- And to complete the fantasy, the typeface comes with 10 different weights! It enables the user to have a good experience with the typeface. The weights are: (See the attachments, some of the weights still need work to be completed.)

 

I. Light   II. Italic (For LTR)  III. Oblique (For RTL)  IV. Outline  V. Round  VI. Smooth  VII. Bold  IIX. Black  IX. Perspective   X. Distorted

Persian (Arabic) typefaces are very poor when it comes to fantasy or display ones. I'd be glad if you share your comments with me.

Thanks for reading this,

Shahab Siavash

PabloImpallari

I can't comment on the Persian part. For the Latin, it's interesting... I can imagine it being use in futuristic movies, video games, apps, etc..

Bahman Eslami

This statement is rather odd "Any Persian (Arabic) parson can read them" because what you've presented here does not fall into category of Arabic script. This is a different script from Arabic. For one thing Arabic script is cursive and most of letters connect, your design not behave like that. The cursiveness is a fundamental feature of Arabic script and with removing it you're altering the construction and rules that governs the script and it makes your design completely illegible, at least to my eyes. I can't read the text in your samples because construction of letters are also changed.

Simon Cozens

I don't see enough visual distinction between the /A and /R, especially in the italic. (And doubly especially in the bold.) "ENTRANCE" is really hard to read.

Ray Larabie

I love the gap trick on the KRX. Have you seen any other modular Persian display lettering?

Ofir Shavit

I can't read it (couldn't even in normal formation) but I love the idea.
I don't see any reason not to develop new writing systems and think it could be useful in many and refreshing ways.
There might no be a need to restrict yourself to isometrics and mono-spacing, the new vertical formation and detachment of the letters are the main issue, preserving  the flexibility given by curves and angels you can achieve better results, both of legibility and typography. 

ivan louette

I like your grunge font !

Just an idea about your /K : why not dooing like for the /X (see attached picture). Could be more legible.

Shahab Siavash

PabloImpallari said:

I can't comment on the Persian part. For the Latin, it's interesting... I can imagine it being use in futuristic movies, video games, apps, etc..

Thanks a lot!
About the Persian part, would you agree that both Latin and Persian are matched or not?
I mean I want to know that the Persian part gives non-Persian people a western vibe?

Shahab Siavash

Simon Cozens said:

I don't see enough visual distinction between the /A and /R, especially in the italic. (And doubly especially in the bold.) "ENTRANCE" is really hard to read.

Thanks dear Simon. Do you have a suggestion? Because I don't want to add angles. 

Shahab Siavash

Ray Larabie said:

I love the gap trick on the KRX. Have you seen any other modular Persian display lettering?

Thanks a lot! Actually it should be out there, but I don't recall right now. The fact is the Persian part of this typeface was designed almost 8 years ago. Now I'm correcting and adding the Latin part.

Shahab Siavash

Ofir Shavit said:

I can't read it (couldn't even in normal formation) but I love the idea.
I don't see any reason not to develop new writing systems and think it could be useful in many and refreshing ways.
There might no be a need to restrict yourself to isometrics and mono-spacing, the new vertical formation and detachment of the letters are the main issue, preserving  the flexibility given by curves and angels you can achieve better results, both of legibility and typography. 

Thanks. Actually this is a good idea. When I was going to begin this project, I found out that it is essential to start with a simple formation. You know, we have a lot of Persians (and also Arabs) which are very very conservative about the traditional Persian (Arabic) letters. They don't even tolerate just ONE typeface in a new unusual form. They even don't like grunge, dirty, distorted,... fonts. It looks like a sacred thing for them and nobody should change the norm.

So I decided to begin with this because this "kind of formation of the letters" is somehow more familiar for a native Persian or Arab.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bannai_script

Shahab Siavash

ivan louette said:

I like your grunge font !

Just an idea about your /K : why not dooing like for the /X (see attached picture). Could be more legible.

Wow. Thanks. I will do this. Great!

P.S: About the grunge font, thanks again

ivan louette

With pleasure. Perhaps i saw it because I love Khayyam :-) I cultivated a beautifully perfumed rose which came from a seed collected a long time ago on his grave.

Shahab Siavash

ivan louette said:

With pleasure. Perhaps i saw it because I love Khayyam :-) I cultivated a beautifully perfumed rose which came from a seed collected a long time ago on his grave.

Wow. That was beautiful. I love Khayyam, too  

Simon Cozens

Shahab Siavash said:

Simon Cozens said:

I don't see enough visual distinction between the /A and /R, especially in the italic. (And doubly especially in the bold.) "ENTRANCE" is really hard to read.

Thanks dear Simon. Do you have a suggestion? Because I don't want to add angles. 

As Ivan suggested for the K, erase the middle "pixel" of the R, then erase the top right corner pixel too.

Shahab Siavash

Simon Cozens said:

Shahab Siavash said:

Simon Cozens said:

I don't see enough visual distinction between the /A and /R, especially in the italic. (And doubly especially in the bold.) "ENTRANCE" is really hard to read.

Thanks dear Simon. Do you have a suggestion? Because I don't want to add angles. 

As Ivan suggested for the K, erase the middle "pixel" of the R, then erase the top right corner pixel too.

I'm working on the "R" right now. Thanks for the advice.

Shahab Siavash

@Simon Cozens @Ray Larabie @Ofir Shavit @ivan louette

Hello! I changed the K and the R. Please tell me what do you think?

ivan louette

It seems good for me. Just curious to see it at work on some words.

Shahab Siavash

ivan louette said:

It seems good for me. Just curious to see it at work on some words.

Sure, I'm gonna post a full Latin and Persian set of glyphs, soon. 

Shahab Siavash

Hello again

There have been some big changes:

- Distorted and Perspective styles were removed.
- Inline (which is my favourite!) and PurePersian were added instead.
- Kernings and metrics for all styles were set.
- The name of the typeface was created: KayKhosrow! 
- Bold Italic and Black Italic were added.
- Stylistic Alternates was added to 2 styles. (Thanks to @Kent Lew)
- Glyphs like /K /X /R were redesigned. (Thanks to @Simon Cozens @Ray Larabie @Ofir Shavit @ivan louette)
- Ligatures in Persian like Lam+Alef and Lam+Lam+Heh were removed. (There is no need for them because the glyphs are not attached together, here.)
- A color font* version was added based on the Inline style.

* I like to do the first one things and this is actually the first ever Persian color font

Enough of the talking, let's see some glyphs

Shahab Siavash

Shahab Siavash

And the Color version in Persian and Latin: