Boutros Arabic Typefaces
[Mourad Boutros]

Boutros calligraphic Arabic fonts (sold by Glyph Systems of Andover, MD) are fonts designed by "Boutros International" a group of experts headed by Lebanese designers Mourad and Arlette Boutros. The blurb: These beautiful TrueType Fonts are designed to work in Microsoft's Arabic Windows versions 3.1 / 95 / 98 / NT as well as on the Mac OS with an Arabic Language Kit.

Their fonts include Boutros Decorative Kufic, Boutros Display, Boutros Koufic, Boutros MB Naskh, Boutros Modern, Boutros New Koufic Modern, Boutros Simplified Naskh, Boutros Asifa, Boutros Farah, Boutros Farasha, Boutros Fares, Boutros Najm, Boutros Thuluth (2012, based on Arabic bamboo calligraphy), Boutros Advertisers Naskh, Boutros Advertising, Boutros BBC Arabic, Boutros GE Tasmeem, Boutros Latin (Serif, Sans Serif), Boutros Maghribi, Boutros Minaret. See also here.

Mourad Boutros is an experienced Arabic creative director, calligrapher and typographer. From his bio: Since 1978, he has been Arabic typographical consultant to many international companies including Letraset. Mourad has designed more than 50 Arabic typefaces, some of which are available on IBM printers as core fonts. Typeface commissions have included corporate typefaces for Mercedes-Benz and for Al Anba, the leading Kuwaiti Arabic newspaper.

At Ascender, Mourad published Boutros Maghribi (2009, codesigned with Rana Abou Rjeily), based on the Arabic calligraphy bamboo classical Maghribi style.

In 2008, Boutros codesigned Tanseek Modern and Tanseek Traditional with Richard Dawson and Dave Farey.

Here you can download these 2004 fonts by Boutros: GEBox-Bold, GECapMedium-Medium, GEContrastBold-Bold, GECurvesMedium-Medium, GEDinarOne-LightItalic, GEDinarOne-Medium, GEDinarOne-MediumItalic, GEDinarTwo-Light, GEDinarTwo-LightItalic, GEDinarTwo-Medium, GEDinarTwo-MediumItalic, GEEast-ExtraBold, GEEast-ExtraboldItalic, GEElegant-Italic, GEElegantMedium-Medium, GEFlow-Bold, GEFlow-BoldItalic, GEFlow-Italic, GEFlow, GEHili-Book, GEHili-Light, GEJarida-HeavyItalic, GEJaridaHeavy-Heavy, GEMBFarahBold-Bold, GEMBFarashaLight-Light, GEMBFaresMedium-Medium, GEMBMBBold-CondensedBold, GEMBNajmBold-Bold, GEModernBold-Bold, GEModernLight-Light, GEModernMedium-Medium, GENarrowLight-Light, GESSTVBold-Bold, GESSTextBold-Bold, GESSTextItalic-LightItalic, GESSTextLight-Light, GESSTextMedium-Medium, GESSTextUltraLight-UltraLight, GESSThree-Italic, GESSThree-Light, GESSTwoBold-Bold, GESSTwoLight-Light, GESSTwoMedium-Medium, GESSUniqueBold-Bold, GESSUniqueLight-Light, GESmooth-LightItalic, GESmoothLight-Light, GETasmeem-Medium, GEThameen-Book, GEThameen-BookItalic, GEThameen-DemiBold, GEThameen-DemiBoldItalic, GEThameen-Light, GEThameen-LightItalic, GETye, GEUnique-ExpandedBold, GEWideExtraBold-ExtraBold. Here one can find Boutros-Ads-Pro-Bold, Boutros-Ads-Pro-Bold-Condensed, Boutros-Ads-Pro-Light, Boutros-Ads-Pro-Medium, and Boutros-Ads-Pro-Medium-Italic.

FontShiop link. [Google] [MyFonts] [More]  ⦿

Fabrizio Schiavi
[Fabrizio Schiavi Design (or: FSD)]

[MyFonts] [More]  ⦿

Fabrizio Schiavi Design (or: FSD)
[Fabrizio Schiavi]

Fabrizio Schiavi was born in Ponte dell'Olio in the Piacenza province in 1971. FSD Fabrizio Schiavi Design in Piacenza was opened in 1998. With Alessio Leonardi, he co-founded Fontology. He also co-launched the experimental graphics magazine Climax in 1994.

Behance link. FontShop link. Klingspor link. Font Squirrel link. Dafont link.

Bio at FontFont where he made FF Mode 01, FF 0069, FF GeabOil, FF9600, FF Trade 01, FF Steel Mix, FF Steel Ring, FF Steel Jones.

[T-26] designer of D44 (1994), Lithium (1994, dingbats), Moore895 (1994), Moore899 (1994), Sidewalker (1994), Exit (1988). Many of his faces are grungy such as Washed (1994). Some are minimalist, such as Monica Due (1999), Monica (1999), and Eco (2001, developed from a logo in the 70s for Ageco). The latter three fonts are very geometric in nature. Other fonts: Washed (1994), Parakalein, Aurora Nintendo (1995), Aurora CW (1995), Mode01 (1995), GeabOil (1995), 9600/0069 (1995), Fontology (1995), FSDItems (2001), FSDforMantraVibes (2001), Pragmata (2001, monospace, OK for programs), PragmataFlash (2002, a pixel font), Pragmata Pro (2011), Essential Pragmata Pro (2011, still monospaced), Sys (2002), SysFlash (2002, a pixel font), Sys 2.0 (2012, a condensed sans designed for very small print), Virna (2003, a multiline face for Italian MTV, discussed here). The Pragmata and Sys series were optimized for screen usage. In addition, Sys has many ink traps, so it prints well at small sizes, and is more legible than Verdana.

He does some custom typeface design, such as the innovative sans serif family called CPCompany (2000). Other clients include Ferrari and Philip Morris.

In 2007, he produced a stencil and signage font, Siruca (see also here), for the Al Hamra Complex, one of highest skyscrapers in the world, located in Kuwait. Siruca Pictograms (2008) is free.

At ATypI in Rome in 2002, he spoke about the need for more fonts.

Showcase of Fabrizio Schiavi's typefaces. [Google] [MyFonts] [More]  ⦿

Fareed Abd Raheem Al-Ali

Kuwaiti calligrapher. [Google] [More]  ⦿

Meshari Al-Muhaini

Designer in Qurtoba, Kuwait, b. 1988. Flickr page. In 2010, he designed Dots and Lines. [Google] [More]  ⦿

Mourad Boutros
[Boutros Arabic Typefaces]

[MyFonts] [More]  ⦿

Pascal Naji Zoghbi

Lebanon-based Arabic type designer who runs the Arab type news and blog site called Arabic Typography. KHTT link. An ex-student of the KABK in 2006, he currently is a part time instructor of design and typography at Notre Dame University, Louaize, Lebanon, as well as a part time instructor of typography at the American University of Beirut (AUB), both since 2007. Home page called 29letters. At ATypI 2008 in St. Petersburg, he ran a workshop on the Arabic Kufi script. Speaker at ATypI 2010 in Dublin on the topic of political resistance and expression through graffiti in Lebanon and Palestine. His contributions to type design:

• Massira. He has embarked on a project with Martin Majoor to design some Arabic fonts that fit Majoor's designs. He writes: Massira is my graduation typeface at Type&Media postgraduate course at The Royal Academy of Arts [KABK] in The Hague. Huda AbiFares contacted me while I was finalizing Massira and presented the opportunity to collaborate with the Dutch type designer Martin Majoor to design an Arabic typeface, which is part of the Typographic Matchmaking 01 project organized by Khatt Foundation. At first I was a bit worried due to the fact that it would be my first professional type design work and that the due date was too close. However, after taking a closer look at Martins type FFSeria and analyzing its characteristics, I noticed that the treatment of the stroke and the structure of the letters shared similarities with Massira. In both fonts the use of sharp broken curves and crispy feel is present. Consequently, I grew confident in project and decided to use Massira as a starting point for the new Arabic companion of FFSeria. Echo, which is Sada in Arabic, is the repetition of a sound caused by the reflection of sound waves from a surface. Accordingly, Sada is the echo of FFSeria. The modifications on Massira consisted of making Sada perform like FFSeria. It had to have the same point size, line space, color, contrast and feel as FFSeria. Concerning the details of Sada and the inclined angle of the vertical strokes, it was derived from the FFSeria Italic. So Sada has the same feel as the Roman but is inspired from the Italic. More on the Sada project. In 2009, Sada was renamed FF Seria and published by FontFont.
• Another project of Zoghbi involves a type family being developed for newspaper headlines.
• In 2007, he created a 3-style Phoenician type family called Fniqiya.
• Alef Pixel Caps Type for Alef Magazine (2008). Done with Huda AbiFares. This is a Latin ornamental type family.
• Al Rouiya Arabic Type for the Al Rouiah Newspaper in Kuwait, 2008.
• Bukra Extra Bold display type for Ibn Battuta Mall in Dubai, 2008. Looks like Futura Bold.
• A corporate font under the heading, Arabic for Univers (2008). Zoghbi: An Arabic corporate typeface for a global shipping and transport company. The Arabic is intended to work with the Latin type Univers. Unfortunately, I can't mention the name of the company nor the design firm I did this Arabic type work for. I was the Arabic type consultant/specialist and associate type designer alongside Leah Hoffmitz. The font will used in all Arabic publications, ads and packaging for the company.
• Baseet (2009) is a hybrid Neo-Naskh / Modern Kufi geometric typeface. It is a mixture of straight vertical, horizontal and diagonal pen stokes incorporated in-between curved corners and edges.
• At FontStruct, he made Arabix 01 (2009).
• UAE Embassy Corporate Type (2010). This is a commissioned Latin typeface based on the same concept as of an Arabic font. Each of the 26 Latin letters has Caps, Initial, Medial and Final shape enabling the letters to connect as in the Arabic script. The drawing of the letters was all done using the Arabic calligraphic bamboo stick and based on the Naskh Calligraphic Style. Opentype help from Erik van Blokland.
• The Mathaf Corporate Arabic-Latin Font (2011). Mathaf Arab Museum of Modern Art opened its doors to contemporary Arab art lovers in December 2010 in Doha, Qatar.
• Nada Debs (2010): a contemporary geometric Kufi type commissionewd by Nada Debs.

Rami Hoballah

Designer in Hawalli, Kuwait. Creator of the calligraphic Arabic typeface Muhammad (2012), which includes outlined, shadow and 3d versions.. [Google]

Shahad AlAsfour

Student in Kuweit. Pure geometry (circles and lines) and a rigorous design process led to Shahad AlAsfour's Turns of a Tensile Typeface (2012) for Latin and Arabic. [Google] [More]  ⦿