2013-2016
Type Design
Typography, Font engineering
Role: Type designer
My fascination with the intricacies of designing fonts has been a constant throughout my academic journey. During my undergraduate studies, I delved into type design courses, resulting in the creation of Mehraz, a Perso-Arabic typeface.
As I progressed into graduate school, my focus on type design deepened, encompassing diverse writing systems and their cultural nuances. It became the focus of my thesis work, where I crafted Marfa, a multi-script typeface. Through this endeavor, I not only refined my technical skills but also gained a profound understanding of the interplay between typography and culture.
Marfa responds to the fact that very few multi-script typefaces look visually consistent, and that most shoehorn non-Latin characters into Latin typographic norms. Marfa type family, in contrast, respects the calligraphic origins of both Perso-Arabic and Latin letters, providing a visually cohesive and culturally sensitive alternative to existing multi-script typefaces.
A animated graphic showing the letter "e" drawn with both horizontal and vertical stress and illustrating the difference between the two writing system norms.
Mehraz Perso-Arabic Typeface
Date: 2013–2014
Mehraz is a high-contrast Perso-Arabic display typeface with calligraphic letterforms. The contrast flow of Mehraz is drawn from Naskh and Sols calligraphic scripts but it has been refreshed by simplifying the curvature to acheive a more contemporary feeling.
The lack of calligraphic display typefaces for Arabic writing system makes Mehraz one of the few in it's own kind. Mehraz is optimized for headlines and short paragraphs.
Mehraz was shortlisted at the 3rd Silver Cypress Biennial, and was displayed at the Imam Ali Museum, Tehran, Iran in 2013.
