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LYDIA BEYOUD
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 A buddy of mine once told me he thought Arabic script looked like someone had taken a sharpie and held it against a wall while driving along side it on a motorcycle (this from a guy learning to speak and write Chinese...) -- interesting mental images aside, people do seem to be fascinated with Arabic scripts, the way the letters connect or stand alone, the beauty of their symmetry or the way they can be rendered into such emotive calligraphy.
There are lots of fonts available in Arabic now, but few that hybridize the Latin script with an Arabic or Persian aesthetic; now the guys behind Talib Type, however, have devoted their talents to designing three fonts in what they style an "intercultural type research project... exploring the effect of globalization on contemporary global graphic design."
 I love the way they've kept the integrity of the form by joining letters together and maintaining what my Arabic professor (and a dabbling calligrapher) once explained to me was the "essential element of harmonious balance" in the script...
"The aim was to show an experimental possibility of merging two different visual styles by creating three Latin fonts with an Arabic 'look and feel'. It all started out when we transferred our headquarters to Cairo, Egypt for about one year.
"Throughout the project, we created three fonts based on three different Arabic styles which influenced or inspired us the most: Naskh [used for many publications and all kinds of media; one of the most known Arabic scripts in the world], Kufi [often used for architectural designs, decorations and inscriptions] and the modern Arabic linear fonts."
Q: How did you come up with the name of the font?
"Talib is Arabic for "seeker of knowledge, student". As a graphic designer you have to be open minded, constantly sucking in all impressions from your environment, constantly "seeking for knowledge", especially when working intercultural."
 And they turned it all into a book about contemporary Arab and Persian graphic design: Arabesque. Sweet!
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