Ishmael66 wrote:

> I'm presently working on a project which will involve the use of
> Arabic fonts and I need to know something about Arabic typography-
> What are the Arabic equivalents of fonts like Impact or Comics Sans?I
> don't mean *actual* equivalents but ones which would give the same
> sort of sense-what's an Arabic business font,what signfies a 'fun'
> font,what's a very ornate one,signifiying things that Copperplate or
> Fraktur would?
> This post may seem very confused but typography is *really* not a
> field of expertise for me so if you can understand what I'm trying to
> say and can help me,it would really be appreciated very much....

My short answer is that there is no definite answer.

European and Arabic typographies are too different to come up with precise
matches between font styles on the two sides. Any match is only partial and
subjective, in the sense that it depends strongly on personal taste and
preferences.

The case of Comic Sans is perhaps slightly easier: that font imitates the
hand writing used in the balloon of Western comics, so it may be possible to
find an equivalently clear and plain Arabic hand writing. My suggestion is
to buy some Arabic comics, and choose the font which is closest to the text
in the balloons.

The case of Impact or is much more tricky. Arabic typography has no close
equivalent to Western sans-serif styles such as Impact, Helvetica, Arial,
etc.

Arabic typography is strongly based on the calligraphic tradition, which is
in turn based on six (or ten) basic calligraphic styles; the most ancient
and venerable of these styles is called "Kufic".

Kufic writing is apparently very similar to Western sans-serif: all strokes
have an uniform width; "serifs" (stroke terminations) are often unused or
reduced to a minimum; the complex and beautiful curves which normally
characterize Arabic are reduced to a few horizontal, vertical, diagonal and
circular shapes; the letter shapes are extremely stylized and simplified, to
the point that sometimes dots or other parts or letters are dropped
altogether.

For this graphic simplicity, Kufic scripts have been used on all sorts of
"difficult" surface, such as stone carving, mosaics, carpets, neon tubes,
etc.

The problem is that the psychological suggestion of Kufic is the exact
*opposite* of that of Western sans-serif! While sans-serif is a modern
style which recalls the concepts such as "modernity", "rationality",
"progress", "hi tech", Kufic is the most venerable of all Arabic styles,
used for ancient inscriptions and for the very first editions of the Quran.

A text set in a Kufic font, recalls to Arabs concepts like: "tradition",
"religion", "history", "classicism", "elegance", "nobility". In modern
typography, Kufic is typically used to set headings of religious texts, the
ensigns of administrative entities (such as the plate at the door of an
embassy) or, on books, for setting the forewords written by some very
important person. By the psychological point of view, Kufic probably
matches better with ancient Fraktur than with modern Arial.

A loose "cultural equivalent" of sans-serif, could be the usual Naskhi type
used to compose the block text of newspaper. However, this modern and plain
style is also the "cultural equivalent" of the serif-ed roman types (e.g.
Times Roman) used to set block the text of Western newspapers...

So, if your Western graphic design makes a difference between sans-serif
(e.g., for titles) and serif (e.g., for block text), this difference cannot
easily be ported to the Arabic version of the same design.

I hope this helps, but I think that a better help could be come by involving
an Arab graphic designer in the project.

_ Marco