The new Arabic Type classification System

One of the main concerns of contemporary Arabic designers is the lack of a comprehensive classification for Arabic typefaces. Since the spreading of printing press in the Arab world by the first half of the 20th century, Arabic typographers, and design scholars learning, working and communicating without classification system. This deficiency creates misinformation within graphic design practices, and education. The increased number of newly designed Arabic fonts, which exceeded the one thousand, and the difficulties by the offered courses: Arabic font design, typography, and editorial design, boosted the demand for a clear and user-friendly classification system.
This paper is aiming to establish an agreeable classification based mainly on the form-language and can facilitate the communication between all parties involved with type and letterforms – designers, typographers, type designers, calligraphers, printers, students, manufacturers, and scholars. In chapter 2, the previous categories and terms by other classifications will be briefly discussed. Questions will be raised about the misuse of terms such as “Neo”. “Post-modern”, “Black headlines”, and “Grotesk. Chapter (3) will explain the new classification’s recourses, method, and used tools, on the light of arguments raised by Elin K. Jacob (2004), the prototype theory, Downer’s explanations for the meaning of “originality” of typefaces (2003), Kühnel’s classification (1972), and “VOX-ATYPI” classification for Latin typefaces. In chapter (4) the final list of classes and their subordinates will be established, and supported with short description for each generic. The research paper will end up with an infographics for the main classes and their subordinates.”