Ruq’ah

Designing Ruq’ah Typeface An Innovation In Arabic

typography

 

 

 

Introduction:

Rules, standards and basic laws of Ruq’ah script had been set since the calligrapher Mumtaz Bik and calligrapher Mohamed Ezzat, ever since many calligraphers developed educational methods and modalities of displaying the beauty of this script. As gratitude from me to those who preceded me in establishing and developing these rules and standards, I have designed a new typeface inspired and highlighted by them, creating my own way of drawing letters connections.

Design aims mainly to:

1.Eradication of marginalization and digital distortion of Ruq’ah.

2.Highlighting the aspects of beauty for this script.

3.Creating solutions that have been absent from the previous experiments of our design.

The Glyphs in the tables above are enough to draw a map for any Arabic typeface depending on pavement horizontal formation. However, Ruq’ah letters, syllables and words  base on the baseline which means they are not built on the horizontal formation.

In the effort to erase the marginalization and digital distortion of Ruq’a and attempting to display the beauty of this script, I have adopted innovative solutions in this design that were absent from earlier ones, summarized in the following:

When it is followed or preceded by a letter, the Arabic letter changes its ends and is symphonized with the letter linked to it. therefore, Ruq’ah letters – initials, medial, final – were divided in their visual construction at the point meeting to eight groups according to the tracking of letters:

Eight groups :

1- Geem Group: (Followed by letters: ﺠ ,ﺞ ,ﺤ ,ﺢ,ﺨ ,ﺦ , ﭽ , ﭻ , ﻬ)

2- Dal Group: (Followed by letters:ﺪ ,ﺬ ,ﮇ ,ﮉ)

3- Reh Group: (Followed by letters: ﺮ,ﺰ ,ﮋ ,ﮍ)

4- Sad Group: (Followed by letters: ﺼ ,ﺺ ,ﻀ ,ﺾ,ﻂ ,ﻄ ,ﻆ ,ﻈ )

5- Ain Group: (Followed by letters:ﻌ,ﻊ ,ﻐ,ﻎ )

6- Feh Group: (Followed by letters: ﻔ , ﻒ, ﻘ , ﻖ , ﭭ , ﭫ)

7- Heh Group: (Followed by letter:ﻬ)

8- Yeh Group: (Followed by letters: ﺊ ,ﻰ ,ﻲ ,ﯽ ,ﮯ ,ﮱ ,ﻤ ,ﻢ)

The point of this method was not in the division into groups, but was in inventing the drawing of the letters› ends at the points of connection, e.g. letter Geem (initial and medial) in the figure below, and according to that are the rest of the letters; following this innovative design method enables us to rapidly progress in completing our projects and educational processes using this typeface, based on this shape and drawing :

elegance requirements were taken into account when designing each letter of this typeface, such as measuring with points as well as standers of drawing ups and downs as shown in the example below:

Quick details: 

1. Number of Latin characters 262 (Unicode);

2. Number of Arabic characters 279 (Unicode);

3. Number of added aesthetic characters 646 (free from any formation  of compound letters (Ligature),Every letter here takes its independent glyph depending on its group.

4. Font format: OpenType;

5. File font size 186 KB;

6. All Ruq›a characters were designed by curves ‹›path›› method in (Adobe Illustrators) program.

7. typeface operates on all applications programs such as «Adobe» and «Microsoft Office»;

8. typeface characters were organized and coordinated using (FontCreator) program;

9. Tables of font were programmed with (Microsoft VOLT)Tool;

10. typeface consists of two  weights: Bold and light;

11. With the light weight, I adopted the extended letters of Ruq›a.

12. Plans of creating a Extrabold weight of typeface font are in being processed.

Samples of Ruq’ah Typeface:

Sultan Maqtari**

info@sultanfonts.com

 s.maktari@gmail.com

http://www.sultanfonts.com

00 967 777 351 925

Aden – Yemen

2011