Taha - The Arabic Type Classification System

Background: Challanges and Critiques
The first challenge by the classification is the finding of proper approach and helpful tools to identify models and building classes, where types organized in groups upon their form similarities and without overlapping or creating fuzzy boundaries. (Jacob 2004, 527-530) It is quite obvious that the characteristics of Arabic types demystify variations of models that started with closely follow classical models, through out types follow a mixture of two or more classical models, till types that reflect different new aesthetics, point of views for “modern” typography, and the evolution of print, and display technology. (Smitshuijzen-AbiFares 2001, 209-231) The based typefaces on older forms can be easily identified as revivals and assigned to one of the classical groups. But the majority of the newly well-designed typefaces can’t be classified as subordinates of one of the classical styles (Figure 1). Most of them carry hybrid features, and appeared simultaneously. (Smitshuijzen, E., 2015, 20-21) The technological developments by the mid of the 1990s, facilitate the programming of Arabic letterforms that have been often discussed in terms of the need for simplification due to new aesthetical and practical functions and technological limitations. Many of the previously produced transferrable decal types, have been digitalized. (Ibid) By the beginning of the 2000s, the number of Arabic typefaces have been increased and appeared in a wide range that started from extremely playful types with sloppy baseline like Diwani, till semi-geometric, that reflect a mixture of different recourses. (Ibid) The second challenge is the finding of appropriate terms for each class and subordinate those reflect understandable clear syntactic and semantical patterns. Unfortunate, the most well-known and great classification of Arabic script of Kühnel can only help by the identification of archaic styles and tracing form developments form the 7th century A.D. till the 19th century A.D. Since the 1940s, appeared few trials to understand the nature of Arabic letterforms and the major models. (Nammour 2012) By the E. Smitshuijzens’ classification (2015) it was quite obvious that we are standing in front of different and rarely used western terms within Arabic graphic designers. (Figure 2) The classification doesn't establish a meaningful relationships between categories, and reflects very confusing mechanism of grouping, where the Arabic typefaces defined by: 1) function (e.g. Black Headline), 2) by the process of creation (e.g. Hybrid), 3) unfamiliar terms within the Arabic calligraphy and typography (e.g. Grotesk), 4) by Zeitgeist (post-modern), 5) traditional or classical subordinate such as (e.g. Thuluth and Ruqaa) and, 6) classical classes (e.g. Naskh, or Kufi). Even if we are going to argue and assume that a constitutive classification is also an example of a simple mechanism for grouping; in the case of E. Smitshuijzen (2015), dividing the Arabic types into a set of “closely follow original” “loosely follow original” and “unrelated to any Arabic model” without clarifying the reasons behind this act, is incomprehensible.
However, we have to admit that Smitshuijzen’s book is one of the greatest efforts we ever seen in our field. The authors had raised important issues, and clarified type design processes, historical developments, technological challenges related to programming of Arabic typefaces, and explained how to use the new typefaces within the concept of modern typography. Important was the raised issue about the lack of unified terminologies and categories by the Arabic typeface anatomy and classification. (Smitshuijzen 2015) Reasons behind that are not explained! Hypothetically, the intensive usage of hybridization’s techniques (Latin and/or to Arabic) by Arabic type designers, along with the lack of Arabic researchers, and type designers, who are interested on examining and analyzing the typeface variations as a result of different functional aspects, build the main reasons behind this dilemma. It is quite obvious that most of today’s Arabic designers are using hybrid ideas, borrowing design techniques and features from successful Latin typefaces such as Frutiger, Helvetica, and Universe, without knowing how to classify or categorize their new creation! Some of them used the term “Grotesk” because their fonts maybe based on one the above-mentioned Grotesk fonts others used terms like “Hybrid”, “Post-modern” or “Black Headlines”.
Neo-Naskh or Neo-Kufi
The term “Neo” stands out the Greek word néos which means as much as “new,” “recent,” “revived,” “modified,” and used in the formation of compound words: neo-Darwinism; Neolithic; neo-orthodoxy; neophyte. (Longman Dictionary 2009, 674) It reflects almost the same meaning in the Arabic term “Jadid”, which means as much as the “new”. Logically the Arabic term “Jadid” can replace the term “Neo-“. (Baalabki 1995, 414) Especially when it is assigned to those newly designed typefaces that are closely following an archaic model. The question here is: How close the new fonts to the model should be? And if the newly designed typefaces include borrowed features from other cultural domains, and new typographical aesthetics, is it still possible to categories them under “Jadid”? Generally the answer can’t be easily given with yes, or no. Any “new” or “neo” font should share common features with its descender, which is the Arabic script. No matter how closely or loosely follow the new design the resources, the term “neo” indicates the extraction from a model or class. Even when many modern Arabic art historian signify that the Latin Gothic, Fraktur or Black types, are strongly manipulated by the archaic Kufi, still the usage of the term “Neo-“ remain limited up to the tide relation between the new type, its archaic ductus, and cultural environment. (Compare Hussein 1963) Finally, none of the great and well-known paleographers, epigraphers, and art historians categorized such “mixed-resulted” scripts under “Neo-Arabic”, but under “pseudo Kufi”. The pseudo Kufi and Naskh styles were known in Europa during the renaissance and have been used for centuries. They were the “Latinized imitations” of Arabic scripts in European environment. (Compare Nagel 2011, 228-248)
Grotesk
The term “Grotesk” is closely linked with the industrial developments’ Europe and later with the idea of democratizing the Latin letterforms, and has no translation in the Arabic language. (Erlhoff and Marshall 2008, 412-413) The economic characteristics of the Grotesk typefaces were mainly created to fulfill the demands of modern European industry, education and culture. The usage of the term “Grotesk” for Arabic typefaces is like a squeezing’s experiment of foreign terms into orthodoxical body? The Grotesk typefaces such as “Akzidenz-Grotesk, “Franklin Gothic”, and “News Gothic” are resulted out of the modern Europe in the 20th century, and arrived the East with the French and British and other colonialist European states. (Aicher and Rommen 1989, 167-168)
Since the beginning of the 20 century, Grotesk typefaces are in use in several Arabic countries but still unknown neither by Arabic designers nor by the Arabic printers. The majority of Arabic typefaces that looks like one of the Grotesk Latin typefaces are called “hadith = modern”. (Bahnasi 1995, Alif-Alif) According to Bahnasi, the new Arabic letterforms reflect the “Arabic” modernism and the visual language, upon the artistic, and aesthetical criteria. (Ibid) Fact is that the Arabic designs have less to do with the Grotesk typefaces, which are intentionally constructed after the less-is-more principle, and not only because of the used tools or materials. However, the argument of using such terms by the classification of Arabic typefaces because of their similarity to European Grotesk is irrelevant and need more research. (Aicher and Rommen 1989, 166)
Even though the characteristics of many newly designed Arabic typefaces showing similarities to the Latin types, this doesn’t change the fact that we are talking about “inspiration” and not about “extension” or “remixing”. Otherwise, once again, the usages of the term “Pseudo” will suites better the imitated copies or clones of foreign scripts.
On the other hand, what can be learned from the usage of the term Grotesk within the Vox classification is the way of categorizing all Grotesk models as subordinates of the main class “modern-linear”. For example the Neo-Grotesk, the Humanist, and the Geometric categories are equally side-by-beside categorized. For laypersons, the four categories looks similar, but by a closer look, their forms are distinguishable such as between the geometrically constructed Futura, Avenir and Avant-Garde, and the humanist typefaces like Optima, and Tahoma, which are not based on the Grotesk of the 19th century but on the Roman inscriptional letters and the Carolingian script. (Ambrose and Harris 2005, 34-46)
Humanist
The term stands out the renaissance humanism, which was a philosophical and ethical stance, that emphasis the value and the ethical of human being. (Stokstad and Cothren 2011, 594) Humanitas is the original Latin word;-ism, entered English in the nineteenth century. The name itself comes from “studia humainitatis”, the renaissance term for the study of classical history, moral philosophy, rhetoric, poetry etc. This means that the term is far from the religious text, and reflects the shift from normatively to individuality. But Humanist “fonts” are those typefaces that basically designed during the 15th century, and following human proportion that are imparted by bonae litterae or humane learning (literally "good letters”). By Vox classification, there are two different categories of humanist typefaces: humanist serif, such as “Janson” and san-serif like “Gill Sans” and “Optima”. Both reflecting human proportion, rounded letterforms and stoke variations. (Compare Aicher and Rommen 1989, 169 with Ambrose and Harris 2005, 34-46)) In Arabic, the word “Humanitas=Insani” means as much as human, and has never been used by Ibn Muqlah (9th - 10th AD.), who “redesigned” the Arabic rounded ductus upon human proportion. In reference to the theoretical text of Rayef (1975) Ibn Muqlah never described his proportioned script as humanist-Naskh or humanist-Kufi! Even by AL-Qalqashandi (1355-1418), Al-Tawhidi (923-1023), and by Raseal Ikhwan Al-Safa “Brethren of Purity" (between the 8th and the 11th century), there is no Evidence that such a term is assigned to a certain style. (Rayef 1975, 58-59) Within the Latin classification there are many new critics against the usage of the term “Humanist”. In his article “The history of ‘humanist’ type”, Craig Eliason argued that while the term specifically denotes certain fifteenth-century texts, only its “humanist” connotations made it attractive to Maximilien Vox. Eliason goes further and even warranted its use in future classifications. Added C. Eliason: “…Maximilien Vox’s employment of “humanes” in his influential 1954 classification scheme did not codify an already accepted category; before Vox the term was rarely used for type, and when it was it sometimes referred to types other than those which Vox would group under the labels. Moreover, the stylistic features that distinguish a humanist seriffed font in Vox’s scheme are not the same features that distinguish the faces later named humanist sans types. Given these vagaries of definition, it is worth asking how and why “humanist” has persisted as a label.” (Eliason 2016) Eventually, there is no clear reason behind categorizing any Arabic version of the Latin typeface under humanist, especially when it comes to rounded versions, scholars and companies should search in the history of Arabic calligraphy.
Black Headlines
Another term appears during the 6o's and 70’s is the “Black Headlines”. The explanation for its existence is: “….The old Arabic calligraphic styles don’t have the needed weights to make hierarchically distinctions in the modern typography.” (Smitshuijzen, E. 2015, 20) Firstly, there is a calligraphic pen called Al-Tumar or Tumar in Arabic = Al-Sahifa, which means in English as much as the newspaper. (Al-Jburi 1999, 65) Al-Tumar or Tumar is the boldest formal version of the cursive script. It is mostly used for short texts at larger type sizes. (Ibid. 1999) Secondly, there is other old Arabic term that could be chosen which is “Jalil”, which is well known by the Arabic typographers and researchers boldest traditional weight among the rounded duct. With Tumar pen calligraphers wrote in big Thuluth or Diwani a size named Al-Jalil or Jalil, which means in Arabic as much as the big or bold.
However the term “Sahifa” or “Sahafi” has almost the same meaning of “Black Headline”, and logically, it were be better to use it -even as tentative term- in order to fulfill the new Arabic typographical demands at the time. The term “Black” could be better used as a font styles, rather than a class. Today we create Arabic typefaces with families having light, regular and bold styles that could be extended to include extra bold, black and extended black styles. Moreover the term “Black Headlines” indicates certain letterforms, which are closely linked with the aesthetics of the 60s and 70s: High contrast between horizontal and vertical strokes, relatively small counters, and exaggerated bold horizontal lines, and almost function as visual products of Op-Art.

Main Menu

See Also

Main Menu