1. B
uildinganinnovativesociety
that remains faithful to its
traditional values and culture –
one of the key objectives of Qatar
Foundation (QF) – can be a challenge in
today’s digital world, with the never-ending
onslaught of English-language texts
and tweets.
While QF is supporting a number of
strategic responses to this challenge, few
are as beautiful and elegant as an initiative
to create new digital fonts based on
traditional Arabic calligraphy that recently
took place within the Graphic Design
Department of Virginia Commonwealth
University in Qatar (VCUQatar).
The type design initiative began with a
project for VCUQatar sophomore students
to design brand identity collateral for the
Supreme Committee for Delivery and
Legacy, formerly the Qatar 2022 Supreme
Committee, which is in charge of all the
arrangements for the 2022 FIFA World
Cup. The students designed pictograms
representing Qatari landmarks and culture
and Arabic calligraphy monograms
representing the various World Cup
stadium locations. Six of these designs
were chosen for inclusion in the
committee’s brand guidelines.
The collaboration continued when the
Graphic Design Department offered an
elective course in Arabic and bilingual type
design to senior students, with the possibility
of adding to the Supreme Committee for
Delivery and Legacy’s branding portfolio.
VCUQatar’s Basma Hamdy, Assistant
Professor, Graphic Design, and Jordan
Gushwa, Art Director, Communication
Department, introduced the students to the
calligraphic principles of Arabic script,
focusing on the Kufi and Naskh styles. After
developing an understanding of traditional
lettering techniques, the students drew a set
of Arabic characters by hand. Using a variety
of software programs and font authoring
tools, the students transformed their
hand-drawn letters into a digital format.
As well as providing a significant design
challenge, the professors wanted to see if
the students could contribute to the
preservation of Arabic script. Najla Al
Khalifa, who graduated from VCUQatar in
May with a degree in Graphic Design, was a
participant in the project.
“You can’t preserve something, but you can
sustain it,” she said. “You can’t just use the
very old Arabic script. It doesn’t function in
the digital world. You don’t see many Arabic
scripts on computers. You see tons of Latin
typefaces that you can use, but there is a lack
of Arabic typefaces in the digital world, and
that should change.”
Al Khalifa drew part of her inspiration for a
modern Arabic typeface from the traditional
TYPOGRAPHY
children’s game dahrooy, in which a child
uses a metal rod to propel a bicycle wheel
forward. Inspired by the wheel and the rod,
Al Khalifa created a bilingual Arabic/Latin
typeface that employs circles and straight
lines. She calls her typeface Dahrooy.
While Al Khalifa’s font has already
attracted commercial interest, she told The
Foundation that she is being selective about
its future. She said: “I don’t want just any
company to use my font, because then it
would be their font. It was designed for
Qatar. It was taken from the history of Qatar.
So it would be great to be something related
to Qatar and not anything else.”
According to Professor Hamdy, the overall
experience of the semester had the potential
to yield unique opportunities both for
VCUQatar’s students and for Qatar itself.
“With typography being the foundation of
graphic design, it is crucial that we have
more type designers in the region who are
trained in Arabic,” she said.
“I believe students with a deep interest in
type design can become professionals in the
field. This will allow them to contribute to
the preservation of the country’s past, but
also its contextualization for Qatar’s future.”
www.qf.org.qa 11
A diagram showing how Najla Al Khalifa took her
inspiration from the dahrooy wheel and stick
VCUQatar students breathe new life into traditional script
ARABIC CALLIGRAPHY
INSPIRES NEW DIGITAL FONTS
VCUQatar graduate
Najla Al Khalifa
displays her new
Dahrooy typeface
You can’t preserve something,
but you can sustain it.