TypeLife, Dubai by night

Brands in Dubai are required by law to display both Latin and Arabic on their products. Here’s some interesting examples of bilingual adaptations:


Bad one The Arabic copies the same style as the Latin but it loses the structure of its characters. Note the first letter from the right.


Good one The Arabic still reads well and it maintains the feeling that the same tool wrote the Arabic and Latin letters. Both maintain the same visual effect and prominance.


Bad one The top part of the Arabic is very crowded and heavy. There wes no need for the descender to jump back up. The overall feel is a bit messy. The negative space in the middle is unresolved.


So and so The weight is ok but the first character from the right is still too ornamental in comparison to the simplicity of the other characters. They forgot to chop off that tree.


Not very happy There’s nothing terribly wrong with it but…


So and so Traditional Arabic Naskh, but doesn’t relate well to the Latin uppercase in terms of modulation and style.


Very bad one The scaled up the Arabic 5, on the right, so it’s too heavy when compared to the 7.


Good one The “hé” is a bit crowded but the overall effect is harmonious and balanced.

Jump to next page and finally to last one.

jfp le 26.11.04 — cat. — tags

11 Commentaires "TypeLife, Dubai by night"

  1. Great examples of conversion to Arabic, JFP. Interesting to see the Virgin logo so meticulously Arabicized while maintaining the felt tip script.

    Please take more!
    Stephen Coles — 2106 days ago
  2. Oh, thanks for the comment, but from what Nadine Chahine just say to me, well… the Virgin logo is not very good in the arabic verssion. The 7up is better.

    She will make comments around the images in next hours—still a type workshop to conduct for now.
    jfp — 2106 days ago
  3. The 7Up one is really great! They’ve really struck a great balance of compromises: since Arabic reads right-to-left, and they didn’t want people to say “sab’a ap”*, plus they wanted to preserve the “7” shape**, so they composed the seven of Arabic letters which read “ap”! They even have the little hamza in the aleph, which not only avoids the reading of “aap”, but better identifies the stick as the letter aleph. Bjannin!

    * Which would also have forced the numeral shape to end up on the right side instead of the left.

    ** The Arabic seven doesn’t look like that (although everybody will know how to read the Latin numerals).

    As for the Virgin one, I actually thought it was cool, although I don’t have Nadine’s expertise.

    hhp
    Hrant — 2106 days ago
  4. The Daniel Hechter images amuse me most. The double slanted lines of the company logo look like a gigantic Arabic fathatan vowel.
    John Hudson — 2103 days ago
  5. Hey…in the photograph of three calendars I wonder how you got hold of three Indian language calendars at the same location! (the lest most is in Tamil the middle in Hindi and the last in Kannada or Telugu)
    divya — 2099 days ago
  6. In the new series, the JVC example makes me wonder whether there is much point in trying to match the Arabic to the Latin: it almost always looks weird, and what is actually gained? Sure, in the JVC example, the Arabic is only matched to the Latin logotype via colour and background, but it goes some way to establishing a distinctive Arabic logotype that actually looks quite nice.

    [Divya, there are a lot of Indian labourers working in Dubai and the other Emirates. I recently read a book that discussed the kind of pidgin and creole languages that are developing among them: strange mixtures of Indian languages and Arabic.]
    John Hudson — 2084 days ago
  7. Without deep backroung on such problems, I have the feeling that there is 4 levels of matching Arabic and Latin in logotypes. In anycase, we should recall that its a brand problem, and less a typographical problem. We are not here on a multiscript typeface but on logotypes for world brands.

    #1 The worst is when arabic versions follow badly booth latin in term of branding and style and was not well designed to be enough legible for arabic.

    #2 Then, we have some brands who match perfectly the brand and style but sound not legible in arabic.

    #3 We have also brands, like JVC who doesn’t fit at all the Latin but do their job at legibility level for arabic.

    #4 The best is when arabic versions are legible and still gave the style, brand, weight of the originala latin. Seems that the 7up is a good example.

    Anyway, what I looking for now is original arabic brands adapted into latin…

    Yes, in the market in the center of the city, we meet much Indian things, as images demonstrate, and what you explain sound pretty realistic.
    jfp — 2084 days ago
  8. That “al-Anwaar” really is trying way too hard! :-/

    As for the JVC one, I think it’s a decent safe solution, but there was the possibility of using a stylized koufi style, sort of like making three Hangul syllables out of lines and geometric turns, if you know what I mean.

    hhp
    Hrant — 2082 days ago
  9. HIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIII!!!!!!!!!! Mr. J.F.P!!! We really miss you here in Dubai!

    Hope you had a pleasent New Year, and we hope this year brings more fonts into your life!!!!!!!!!

    Hope to see you in the near future!

    P.S. we just wanted to drop you a line and say hello! Come to DUBAI soooooooooooooooooooooooooooooon!!!

    BEYONCE (maya) and serena
    Beyonce and Serena — 2050 days ago
  10. Yes, I hope too—to be back later this year :)
    I wrote that from a nice hotel in cold NY that you could like as there is a really big add featuring Destiny’s Childs on it, almost half of the size of the buidling of 50 floors…
    jfp — 2050 days ago
  11. I’m now a fan!
    The Pageman — 2042 days ago