Welcome to Athelas Arabic

Just released!! Athelas Arabic, created by talented CPHC member and PhD candidate, Sahar Afshar, is an elegant typeface for fine digital and printed books — perfect for Arabic literature’s captivating forms. Originally designed independently, it worked entirely on its own and yet already seemed a good fit for Athelas. So it was decided to give it a thorough reworking to make them appropriate companions while maintaining the natural aesthetic qualities of Arabic.

First, the Arabic letter sizes were readjusted so as to not appear larger next to the Latin, then weight and contrast were changed in the same way. Finally, the spacing and connections in the Arabic were considered to achieve comparable colour as the Latin in a block of text. Ultimately, both the Latin and Arabic are graceful designs based on classic proportions, prioritising the beauty, tranquility, and fluid nature of the wordsmith’s art.

With extensive Middle Eastern language coverage and the expected OpenType features, Athelas Arabic is the counterpart Athelas Latin, Greek, and Cyrillic have been waiting for. The graceful, elegant curves of the Athelas heritage have remained a hallmark in each script. With this release it will only gain a wider and quite appropriate audience. For more information please visit Type Together.