Branding &
Arabic Type Design

AP Al Khaleej

The idea behind AP Al Khaleej typeface is to create a modern & contemporary Naskh newspaper typeface, that would complement the modern Arabic newspaper designs, also to achieve an overall high level of visual consistency.

The typeface design came out condensed and heavy, the letters were simplified and modernized but preserve the heritage of the Naskh style.

Our approach to achieve a high level of consistency, was by unifying the shapes of some Arabic characters that doesn't share a visual similarities, this direction is a high risk, because of the compromise we might pay against the legibility of the characters, which would affect the overall design function.

We identify the area where we can improve. Based on the visual similarities we had a groups of characters which we can't touch because it delivers the visual consistency already, the letters which had its individual shapes would form our research area, by identifying this group " و، ف، ق، ي، م، ه، هـ" , we had to create a visual similarities for them, in the same time not to lose the originality of the Naskh style and the individuality of each character.

After a look in depth we reach to form the element that will create a sense of consistency for these characters. "Heh isolated" character can function as the visual overlapping for these letters, we design it in a unique way, and incorporate it in the rest of the letters " و، ف، ق، ي، م، هـ ". The result was astonishing, the word "مفهوم" shows and sums up the the whole idea.

AP Al Khaleej include three weights, bold, regular and light, and it will be available soon.