The Arabic Type Design Archive

Vitória Neves is a letterer and type designer from Portugal. Vitória has a background in German, English and Spanish Literature and Languages studies. She decided to quit her career in teaching to pursue her childhood passion for letters. After creating some logos and lettering for clients, Vitória adventured herself in creating typefaces, since she believes this to be the ultimate level of dedication to letterforms. Her main focus resides in script typefaces.

" Art Director " -Branding -Graphic Design -Typographer -Font Designer -Photographer

Hermann Zapf, the designer of fonts such as Palatino, Optima, Zapfino, Melior, Aldus, and the quirky, yet very beloved, Zapf Dingbats, had a prolific career. One of the pioneers of computerized typography, Zapf worked on many fonts, but his personal favorite was the humanist sans serif typeface Optima, the lettering chosen for the Vietnam Veterans Memorial wall in Washington, DC. Born in Nuremburg, Zapf started to experiment with font-making as a child. He served as a cartographer for the German army during WWII, drawing maps of Spain. At the end of the war, he was imprisoned by the French but said he was treated well. “They had a great deal of respect for me as an ‘artiste’” he wrote. “I think the French still have this respect today.”

Aida Sakkal specializes in all things technical and she is particularly interested in programming the artistic tendencies of beautifully hand-written calligraphy. With a B.S. degree in Computer Science from the University of Washington, her other primary interest is in developing tools to aid and automate the font creation process. Aida has been working with OpenType since 2001 and has played a role in the growth of OpenType and its application to Arabic fonts.

Sina Fakour is a visual artist, graphic and type designer, researcher and tutor. He graduated with a BA in Graphic Design from the Ecole des Beaux-Arts de Lyon, and holds a master's degree in Graphic Design from the École supérieure d’art et design de Valence. In 2023, he also completed his post-master research program at Atelier National de Recherche Typographique in Nancy, France. His work revolves around the concepts of language, writing systems, code, and translation. These concepts are expressed through diverse mediums, including Print, multilingual typography, editorial design, type design, creative coding, scientific experimentation, tool making, photography, video, & more. Furthermore, he participates in and gives lectures on typography, his research, and his practice at various events, as well as regularly engaging with art schools as a lecturer, jury member, or workshop instructor. He is currently assistant professor at the American university of Beirut (AUB).

We are a type foundry situated in the heart of Copenhagen, Denmark. For more than twenty years we have been making retail and custom-made typefaces for international brands.

SIL International works with local communities to develop language solutions that expand possibilities for a better life. A small team specializes in developing fonts for world scripts including Arabic, Burmese, Cyrillic, Devanagari, Ethiopic, Greek, Gunjala Gondi, Hebrew, Latin, Lepcha, Miao, New Tai Lue, Tai Viet, Tifinagh, and Yi.

Protype is an independent type foundry and a place to explore beautifully typefaces that are made with love.

Founded in 2018, Original Type sets out to produce and publish original, contemporary typefaces, both retail and custom, that enable creatives and brands express themselves in an authentic way.

Babelfont is an independent type foundry in Paris and Marrakech. We design multiscript typefaces — Arabic, Latin, Tifinagh, and Korean. Our goal is simple: connect cultures through letterforms.
 The language of the future is multiscript.