[developers] Traditional Naskh-style font project

[Khaled Hosny <khaledhosny at eglug dot org>]

Hi every one,

As many of you might know, I've been working on a traditional,
Naskh-style Arabic font that is essentially a revival of the Naskh
typeface[1] employed by Bulaq press[1] in the first half of the last
century.

What is unique about this Naskh typeface, is that it has been designed
specifically to be mechanically typeset (for metal type), with
simplified set of glyph substitution rules and greater readability,
while maintaining the aesthetic aspects of Naskh calligraphy. It is, to
my knowledge, the only Arabic typeface that have been designed with such
degree of care. The glyphs were calligraphed by Muhammad Ja'far; the
master calligrapher of his time.

Bulaq typeface defined the standard of Arabic print typefaces, and there
are many digitization of it, either proprietary (Monotype Naskh, MS's
Traditional Arabic, and Linotype Lotus to some extent) or free (SIL's
Scheherazade), but neither takes full potential of advancements in font
technology to replicate all the desired aspects of the metal type.

I've been working on the project for around a year now and it
progressing slowly but rather steadily. Almost all glyphs are drawn and
basic OpenType programming is done.

I've been recently approached by people willing to accelerate the pace
of the development by funding the project so I can work on it full time
for a month or two and finish it.

Last year I got a 1000$ grant from TUG[3], I got a promise for another
1000$ (individual donation), if you are interested in funding this
project, please see [4] for more details.

Regards,
 Khaled


[1] http://code.google.com/p/amiri/wiki/Samples
[2] http://www.bibalex.org/bulaqpress
[3] http://tug.org/tc/devfund/grants.html
[4] http://code.google.com/p/amiri/wiki/Donate

-- 
 Khaled Hosny
 Arabic localiser and member of Arabeyes.org team
 Free font developer