New UAE Dirham Currency Symbol

leksendesign
leksendesign Posts: 14
in Type Design Technique & Theory
I'm guessing it's too early, but if anyone has information on the name, unicode value, or design specs for the new dirham symbol, please post here. Thank you! 

https://www.arabnews.com/node/2596669/business-economy
https://www.arabnews.com/node/2595058/business-economy
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Comments

  • John Savard
    John Savard Posts: 1,175
    Apparently, it's going to need two Unicode values, since the symbol with a circle around it stands for the digital Dirhem.
  • George Thomas
    George Thomas Posts: 657
    edited April 16
    Your guess about being too early is correct. It has only been about three weeks since this was announced. No indications on the Unicode site that this has even been proposed yet. After that, the proposal follows a defined process which can take a lot of time.
    Specifications/guidelines and a vector file are here:
    https://www.one-fs.com/p/the-new-uae-dirham-symbol-and-digital
  • Peter Constable
    Peter Constable Posts: 261
    No proposal yet. I've been trying to connect with the Central Bank of UA via Microsoft colleagues in UAE to find out what their wishes are wrt broad support of the Dirham sign in text.
  • Thomas Phinney
    Thomas Phinney Posts: 3,053
    edited April 16
    @Peter Constable So, they would need to have a proposal, and then that would go through the process... at best it would be months before we have even a tentative codepoint, yes?
  • Peter Constable
    Peter Constable Posts: 261
    @Thomas Phinney Yes. 
  • James Puckett
    James Puckett Posts: 2,021
    At least it will be an easy character to draw. That will be helpful for the people tasked with adding it to thousands of existing typefaces.
  • leksendesign
    leksendesign Posts: 14
    Yes, a little easier to design than the Riyal! And yes, there will be two glyphs, one for the digital version. Thanks, everyone!
  • leksendesign
    leksendesign Posts: 14
    @George Thomas Thanks for the link!
  • John Hudson
    John Hudson Posts: 3,467
    I wonder if Unicode will accept two characters for encoding, or handle the digital currency symbol with the enclosing circle character?
  • Peter Constable
    Peter Constable Posts: 261
    edited April 18
    Btw, here's the announcement from the UAE Central Bank: cbuae-unveils-new-dirham-symbol-en.pdf

    It doesn't mention one-fs.com, but I notice the page George Thomas provided has links to additional resources apparently from CBUAE, notably this (which I haven't found yet on the CBUAE site):
    The_UAE_s_National_Currency_Symbol_1743087376.pdf - Google Drive
  • Peter Constable
    Peter Constable Posts: 261
    John Hudson said:
    I wonder if Unicode will accept two characters for encoding, or handle the digital currency symbol with the enclosing circle character?
    Something I find interesting about this: At first glance, when I saw the circled, multi-coloured version of the Dirham sign, my only thought was, "Ah! Fonts can have BW and COLRv1 glyphs." However, I was overlooking the circle: the circled/coloured version could have different metrics.
  • John Hudson
    John Hudson Posts: 3,467
    Interesting also that the document to which you linked, Peter, refers to one sign as the ‘National Currency Symbol’, but to the other as the ‘Digital Dirham Brand’ and ‘identity’. Unicode doesn’t encode brand marks per se.
  • Thomas Phinney
    Thomas Phinney Posts: 3,053
    True. But also, it would not be shocking if the folks who designed it were not aware that color fonts with gradients are an actual thing, now. They may not have realized that having it in fonts was even possible.
  • leksendesign
    leksendesign Posts: 14
    Thanks, Peter!
  • Rafael Saraiva
    Rafael Saraiva Posts: 32
    The proposal has been made: https://www.unicode.org/L2/L2025/25159-uae-dirham-symbol.pdf
  • Thomas Phinney
    Thomas Phinney Posts: 3,053
    Besides the general question of whether the style of the symbol should match the font in other ways, there are simple things like weight. If the font comes in two or four or nine weights, does one really want only the UAE Dirham currency symbol to fail to adjust its weight to match the font? All other currency symbols will be doing so, because that is how currency symbols work.

    Similarly, in most fonts, the currency symbols are tabular — on the same fixed advance widths as the numbers. The predefined logo may not properly fit on the tabular width; it looks likely to be too wide in many cases.
  • Craig Eliason
    Craig Eliason Posts: 1,471
    Not to mention what strikes me as a flaw in the "built to precision" geometric guidelines: the two horizontals are set to extend 1 1/2x their width past the main strokes they cross, which I suspect was intended to look even. But because the left is a straight stem while the right is a bending curve, and because the left side has "serifs" reaching leftward, the horizontals optically appear to stick out more on the right. 
    If I add this to my types I'll shoot for a better optical balance. 
  • Ray Larabie
    Ray Larabie Posts: 1,464
    Ignoring the spec is what typeface design is all about. D with two standard currency bars…done!
  • Pascal Zoghbi
    Pascal Zoghbi Posts: 2
    Will UTC include a U + XXXX value for the new UAE DIRHAM SIGN for Unicode 17.0 like the U+20C1 SAUDI RIYAL SIGN? Or it would be later? 
  • Peter Constable
    Peter Constable Posts: 261
    The Dirham sign will be added in Unicode 18.0, which will be published next year. A proposal for the Dirham was not submitted in time for it to be added to Unicode 17.0.

    You can see the status of characters that the Unicode Technical Committee has taken action on but that are not yet in a released version on the Pipeline page.
  • Pascal Zoghbi
    Pascal Zoghbi Posts: 2
    edited August 15
    Thank you, Peter, for your response. I can see that they did assign the U+20C3 for it.

    So Saudi Rial SIGN is U + 20C1 and UAE DIRHAM SIGN is U + 20C3.

    If we begin assigning the Unicode value of these new signs in the fonts sets and generate new versions by fall 2025, the fonts will be ready with the new signs when they are supported across platforms. 

    Is that correct? 
  • Peter Constable
    Peter Constable Posts: 261
    Unicode 17 will be released in a few weeks, and no further technical changes will be made. So, code point assignments for 17 are fixed.

    Unicode 18 is still almost a year away from having technical details finalized. So, for any characters that are candidates for inclusion in 18, there is some risk of changes. It's unlikely that the Dirham sign would be postponed beyond 18 or that the code point assignment would change, but that isn't 100% guaranteed.

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