The Arabic Type Design Archive

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.”

A Riyadh-based graphic and type designer who originally studied computer engineering and later turned his passion toward typography and branding.

A graphic and type designer. He founded TSfonts Type Studio in 2020, based in Istanbul, Turkey. Under his vision, they have built a rich library of distinctive fonts that they own and license to designers, advertisers, and brands worldwide. Continuously expanding, he is dedicated to developing fresh fonts that reflect current trends while staying true to tradition.

A type designer and typographer. His internationally recognized practice spans commercial and cultural work, with a focus on Arabic and multilingual design. Titus’s interests and activities extend to academic research and teaching in higher education: His monograph Arabic Type-Making in the Machine Age was published with Brill in 2017, and he has taught type design and typography at schools in Austria, France, Morocco, Qatar, and the UK.

type designer and founder of the Fontamin website.

Hi, I’m Vitória and this is my playground! Just in case you were wondering, “Seven” is my last name backwards. Since I believe that designing typefaces is the ultimate level of dedication to letterforms I created the SevenType Studio – an independent type foundry.

Being the first and most experienced independent font foundry from South America, PampaType was founded in 2001 in Argentina by Alejandro Lo Celso, with the purpose of developing high quality typefaces for the widest range of uses, engaging in both retail & bespoke font industries. Since then their passion and work, which pioneered the Latin American type design scene, have become widely known and appreciated. Their typefaces have been broadly recognized for their quality and originality, and their team have become more international and more experienced. They believe in the idea of diversity. It is not unusual that PampaType families include various styles, some of them meant for immersive reading, some others for titling or decorative use. Their fonts are carefully handcrafted. They pay serious attention to details so characters look good both printed and on screen. Spacing and kerning are made by hand following visual strategies rather than mathematical methods. Therefore instead of feeling mechanical, their fonts build an organic rhythm, aiming at a friendly atmosphere and comfortable reading.

Atlas Fonts publishes original typefaces for today’s global reading experiences. Dedicated to professional use in editorial, brand, and interface design, Atlas’ typefaces offer multilingual, multi-platform solutions. Carefully crafted details and thoughtful features enable designers to achieve refined typography and innovative visual identities. Our typographic systems are built to perform across all environments – from large-scale to micro text, from one script to another. Each growing collection of high-quality font families is meticulously developed and extensively expanded. What began nearly twenty years ago as an academic playground for language, reading behavior, and typographic design has evolved into a studio dedicated to developing comprehensive typographic systems. We aim to solve the complex challenges of multi-platform typography in a globalised world for each individual native reader. Founded in 2012 by Christoph Dunst, Atlas Fonts is based in Berlin, Germany.

Mestara which is a measurement tool means the “ruler” symbolizes our precision, we are a type foundry specialized in creating and designing Arabic typefaces. Founded by a professional calligrapher and designer, Mestara aims to reflect the beauty, and modernity while respecting traditional calligraphic principles.

We specialise in letters in a broad sense, from type design to lettering, from Latin to Arabic, passing through other scripts such as Armenian, Cyrillic, Georgian, Greek, Hebrew and Thai. We are surrounded by a network of bright collaborators and consultants in order to ensure the best possible quality. Our work has been recognised internationally in several type competitions such us TDC, ED-Awards, Morisawa, Granshan, Modern Cyrillic and Horouf.