Cover Page
The handle http://hdl.handle.net/1887/45414 holds various files of this Leiden University
dissertation.
Author: Abi-Fares, H.
Title: The Modern Arabic Book: Design as Agent of Cultural Progress
Issue Date: 2017-01-10
Smitshuijzen AbiFarès, Huda. The Modern Arabic Book: Design as Agent of Cultural Progress / 402
Book cover of a children’s book Fi Hāḏā al-ʿĀlam (In This Worl), a book explaining the concept of opposition (the yin and
yang) of the world and indirectly promoting tolerance. Text by Nadine Touma, illustrations by Fadi Adleh (Fādī ʿĀdila), book
design and typography by Lara Assouad. Beirut: Dār Onboz, 2008.
Smitshuijzen AbiFarès, Huda. The Modern Arabic Book: Design as Agent of Cultural Progress / 403
Conclusion
Modern Arabic Book
Design: Conventions
and Contemporary
Trends
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Smitshuijzen AbiFarès, Huda. The Modern Arabic Book: Design as Agent of Cultural Progress / 404
Smitshuijzen AbiFarès, Huda. The Modern Arabic Book: Design as Agent of Cultural Progress / 405
Conclusion
Modern Arabic book design: conventions and contemporary trends
5.1. Modern Arabic book design at the turn of the twenty-first century
Arab modernity and the changes in its perception is mapped in this research through an
investigation of key landmarks of publishing and Arabic book design trends. The research
illustrates how sociopolitical developments in the Arab world from the late nineteenth century
to the present, have influenced the development of both the press and new media, and how
in turn, they have affected Arabic book publishing and design.
Liberal thinking and the free independent press were brought about by the democratization
of education through the work of Western (European and American) missionaries and a few
visionary rulers in the second part of the nineteenth century in the Middle East. Books produced at
that time were mostly educational. These published works (books and independent newspapers)
did not only consolidate a ‘modern’ Arabic language, but they also propagated the notion of a
unified Arab culture—a modern Arab umma (or nation). Yet this modern society, its technological,
scientific, sociopolitical and intellectual (artistic) progress, was inspired from Western models,
appropriated, and adjusted to fit the newly conceived Arab culture.
Progress and modernity became often synonymous with ‘Western’ and came to color
modernization as imitation of the West. This notion of ‘westernization’ was most visible in the
visuals arts practices that by definition strive for constant renewal. Modernization of book ‘design’
was a sensitive topic, where being modern implied a break with a long, rich, and conservative
tradition of book making. The first printing presses in the Middle East in the late nineteenth
century, who were also publishers, were motivated by religious ideology. Their publishing was
directed towards educating the local population to better convert them to their version of religious
scriptures. The books produced were educational tools and their designs were conceived to
be acceptable to the local tastes and established visual conventions. Book design innovation
concentrated primarily on technical inventions; namely on how to adapt the handset typographic
technology (originally conceived for the Latin script) to the handwritten cursive script of
a calligraphic tradition (that of the complex Arabic script). The design of the printing types
presented the biggest challenges and many efforts were put into the making of Arabic fonts that
facilitated the speed of typesetting and minimized errors, while remaining legible to the
educated Arab readers.
Smitshuijzen AbiFarès, Huda. The Modern Arabic Book: Design as Agent of Cultural Progress / 406
On the level of page layout, anther way of balancing traditional page setting conventions
with modern technology, was to use the handwritten manuscript as a model for layout design. This
lend the early printed books the trusted authority of the original handwritten texts and helped
make printed Arabic books more culturally acceptable and more ‘authentic-looking.’ Page layout
was gradually simplified and ‘Western’ typographic conventions were introduced. Effectively,
these early presses (publishers), laid down the basic design foundations of the printed Arabic book
for the generations that followed.
From the 1970s onwards, there is a discernible concern with book design as a means for
bringing art to the ordinary citizens and the general public. Designers were originally trained as
artists who chose to get involved in popularizing art through printed matter. They created
expressive and eclectic designs that combined modern/Western principles with traditional/Arab
characteristics or imagery. This represented the beginning of a culturally self-conscious design
movement and a clear manifestation of the individuality of the designer and art director as
a cultural activist. It was the beginning of a modern Arab publishing industry that was not only
creative in the launching of new literary genres, but was also conscious of the power of design as a
tools to use in disseminating and popularize these new kinds of narrative forms. For example, the
important role of children's books as a means towards cultural progress was being acknowledged.
Illustrated books, written and designed for children, carried civic or political messages, training
children to think individually and responsibly, and nurturing basic developmental skills based
on scientific methods of child psychology. The language was modernized and simplified for
children, the illustrations were beautified, and the stories became more playful and inspirational.
From the late nineteenth century to the present, the Arab world has been in a state of
modernization flux, struggling to catch up with Western progress and cultural development. The
Arab peoples have been valorizing their culture through the gaze of the Western Other and in
reaction to this image, rediscovering the discarded Arab literary and visual heritage, and finding
ways to recontextualize this heritage within contemporary society. The discourse (to this day)
remains engaged in marrying the multiplicity of cultural heritage within Arab societies to that
of Western globalized aspects of contemporary culture. The whole concept of the modern has
become equivalent to Western, so attempts at innovation are seen by default as imitations of
Western visual culture. The reaction to Western intrusion (and the many political Arab defeats
this has caused) has created a defensive reaction; an inward-looking reevaluation that often leads
to close-minded conservatism and cultural stagnation, and to focusing on perfecting what has
been created by older masters rather than building upon and creating innovative new solutions.
Smitshuijzen AbiFarès, Huda. The Modern Arabic Book: Design as Agent of Cultural Progress / 407
With the growing power and proliferation of networked new media, the two camps of
traditionalism versus global modernity have been pitted against each other. The emerging and
visible multiplicity of voices, opinions, visual and cultural trends, have created a welcome
openness to inspiring aesthetic developments from other cultures (not just Western cultures).
The exposure to this ‘global’ visual culture has consolidated a new transnational ‘youth culture,’
that expresses itself through an eclectic sampling of visual and artistic trends. It has put into
question the notion of a cultural identity built upon traditional affiliations such as religious,
national, or language-based ones. This questioning of cultural identity is equally reflected
in current contemporary publishing and book design trends.
Arabic book design today remains in need of further professionalization and recognition.
There is a limited number of individual designers involved in various aspects of book design and
production, but few completely dedicated to this design specialization. Employing a book designer
is perceived as luxury and reserved for special editions or art books, where the visual aspect of
the book is considered important enough to require the extra investment. Literature, fiction, and
poetry in paperback formats are usually produced in a more streamlined and with limited funds.
For this type of books, designers are commissioned to design the book covers only (occasionally
including the front matter, or only the title page). Over the course of this research, I highlighted the
importance of book design as a key medium for cultural progress by summarizing certain trends.
The trends I have described have established typographic conventions and consolidated a modern
Arabic book design culture.
5.2. Arabic book design conventions
Book design conventions that were established in the early twentieth century remained
practically unchanged for over one hundred years. The original designs put forward by the
American Press and the Imprimerie Catholique at the end of the nineteenth century became the
accepted classical way to typeset Arabic books; a mix of traditional traits (especially in the choice
of typefaces and mixing of styles) and modern Western (American and French) typesetting
and page architecture. In the 1950s, a clear rationalization of book design took place, inspired
by the modern novel and pulp fiction and its European/Western aesthetics. So the mix of old and
new became even more eclectic. The conventions that have survived can be divided into three
categories: typographic styling, type spaces, and overall structure.
Smitshuijzen AbiFarès, Huda. The Modern Arabic Book: Design as Agent of Cultural Progress / 408
5.2.1. Typographic styling: Arabic typefaces and conventional usage
The Nasḫ calligraphic style was adopted as the ‘legible’ style for serious texts and long
reading. Variations on what falls under this style of Arabic script have evolved over the years. What
started with the relatively low-contrast and thin al-Amrīkānī typeface of the American press, and
the more calligraphic Stambūlī typeface of the Imprimerie Catholique, was modernized, made
bolder and simplified over the years and with the change in typesetting technologies. The most
commonly used for book typesetting for literary texts, is the simplified Nasḫ typeface, Lotus
designed by Linotype. In principle the style was uniform but the typefaces selected for long texts
varied with the equipment of the typesetters. A few large institutions, such as the Al-Ahrām
(newspaper and publishing house) and the Al-Nahār newspaper, had their own corporate font
designed and produced for their exclusive use.
As strict as this convention may seem, the freedom of choice for titling fonts was as wide as
the availability of Arabic display fonts. The classical convention was to use the Nastaʿlīq style for
subtitles on covers (or for typesetting the name of the publisher, especially in the early twentieth
century when publishers still had no logotype) and for the titling of the preface and the front
matter. For chapter divisions, and chapter titling a bold Kufic style was used, and this varied
between a simple geometric modern Kūfī to a floriated and ornamental one. In the 1960s to 1980s
and thanks to phototypesetting machines, more modern and bold typefaces were used for titles
(and emphasis within running text), using a Nasḫ Masṭarī style that imitated headlines in
newspapers, or a bold and simplified Ruqʿa style. Occasionally a large Ṯuluṯ typeface is used for
titling or for typesetting poetry texts and whole books.
The manuscript convention of mixing of calligraphic styles for creating a visual hierarchy
within texts has persisted until recently when Arabic typefaces did not have extensive variations in
weight and styles within the same family. This is changing due to the new possibilities that digital
media offer, and the growing number of designers that are conscious of global typographic design
trends. It is also important to note that the modern Nasḫ-style typefaces have been changing in
proportion and style to accommodate legibility for on-screen reading; the ascenders have become
shorter and the counter-forms more open, making it possible to set the typefaces at smaller sizes
and still retain clarity of form and ease of reading.
Most preoccupation with Arabic typographic design has focused on designing and
rethinking the Arabic script and adjusting the technology to match its complexity, or inversely
adjusting the script to match the technology of the day. Several mechanical devices were invented
for reproducing the complex calligraphic Nasḫ script in the late nineteenth century in order to
lend books the authority and authenticity afforded to the handwritten manuscripts, and because
Smitshuijzen AbiFarès, Huda. The Modern Arabic Book: Design as Agent of Cultural Progress / 409
this was the only reliable source to model the new printing types after—the same could be said of
early Latin types since Gutenberg. The American press created a special groove in their characters
to allow for the placement of the vocalization marks, whereas the Imprimerie Catholique cast
special vocalized characters whereby the vocalization marks were part of the same sort as the
letters or ligatures. Both systems were less than ideal but quite innovative in adapting the rigid
technology they had to work with to the complexity of the accepted calligraphic Ottoman Nasḫi
style. The first and older system of the American Press, though practical in keeping the character
set to its minimum, was vulnerable in expanding the margin of typesetting errors and was quite
labor-intensive. The second system of the Imprimerie Catholique, was more accurate and
aesthetic, just as labor-intensive to typeset, and more costly because of the amount of sorts needed
to typeset a fully vocalized text. This became easier to reproduce in the mechanical technology
of the Monotype typesetters. As the technology became more automated and the focus on
production speed became more urgent, brought about by the press and daily newspapers, the
production of Arabic type moved from the hands of the local artisans to the Western producers
of typesetting equipment that collaborated with local calligraphers to create Arabic type for their
typesetting machines—some fonts becoming classics and remain is use nowadays.
The printed Arabic text became common and accepted as a reliable source of information
with its own modern machine-age aesthetic. This was also motivated by the growing need for
printed Arabic books—growing numbers of readers—and so production speed and reduced costs
were the priority for progress. The Arabic fonts were then modified, and the character set
streamlined to its absolute minimum, to match the new limitations of the technology. This latter
aesthetic remained the standard norm for Arabic fonts until very recently. With digital technology,
this limitation has been slowly removed and today we are able to typeset at even faster speeds,
the most complex scripts employing a larger than ever character set, with many embellishments
and variations. Recently, a new return to the old complex calligraphic scripts has manifested itself;
some are pure revivals of the old fonts of the nineteenth century and others are complex
interpretations or new creations of modern calligraphic Arabic fonts—this interest in complexity
is also on the rise in Latin type design. For the first time in type design history the trends are
diverse and range from the most geometric and austere, to the most curvilinear and ornamental
calligraphic designs—all available on the market leaving the choice of what and how they are used
entirely to the end users. This also applies in the Arab world; graphic designers sometimes choose
to return to older styles, or employ more modern typefaces in their work, depending on personal
preferences or what is seen as the required look for the design at hand.
Smitshuijzen AbiFarès, Huda. The Modern Arabic Book: Design as Agent of Cultural Progress / 410
5.2.2. Type spaces: type sizes, page formats, layout and structure
The traditional Arabic literary book in all its forms, from the popular modern novel to the
classical literature has adopted over the past century a few basic standard conventions when
it comes to type spaces: type sizes, page formats, layout and structure. Poetry books, by contrast,
remained more free in their layout: typesetting of verses with ample surrounding white spaces
between the lines and around the text block; mixing text and illustration where text was
sometimes used as illustration (in modern free-verse poetry) such as in the experimental poetry
book, Ramād alā Arḍ Bārida (Ash on Cold Earth, 1972), an artistic collaboration between designerpoet Abdelkader Arnaout (1936–1992) and artist-illustrator Nazir Nabaa.
5.2.2.1. Type sizes and alignments
Text-blocks are conventionally typeset in justified text block, with an average of 8-12 words
per line. The size of the font is often typeset in Lotus regular 14/19pt—which visually translates to
Times Roman 12/15pt—the Arabic text needing more leading since it uses more frequently letters
with descenders and therefore is equally dense above and below the baseline. This justified
text setting is an old convention that dates back to handwritten manuscripts; it has been further
‘set in lead’ as a printed Arabic book convention and further consolidated by the French/Western
convention of using this alignment for long texts in literary books, and modern novels in particular.
This text setting convention was deviated from (especially in the 1950s—1970s) for long
historical works that needed to be kept at an affordable price. The font used in these works was
a bolder and simplified Nasḫ Masṭarī style, set at much smaller sizes, between 10pt and 12pt.
Recently and with the new simplified Nasḫ fonts on the market that are designed especially to be
used at small sizes, the type sizes have varied depending on the designer’s aesthetic preferences
and/or other practical limitations such as production costs and type of targeted reader. The 1950s
to late 1970s, the typesetting look of unsharp and bold fonts has been revived in current Arabic
book design for nostalgic reasons; to evoke the revolutionary and progressive mood of that period.
Justified text setting has become the most currently used alignment across book design
traditions because it is the space-saving and cost-effective layout solution. This text setting is
compact, it saves paper and therefore reduces printing costs. This type of text alignment is
particularly suited for Arabic text setting in aesthetic terms as well. It gives an even color and
a visual quietness to a page set in the Arabic script, a script whose multidirectional angles,
complex letterforms and letter combinations creates a lively texture.
The justified text block is usually placed in the center of the page (regardless of page format)
with a 2 cm margin all around—sometimes a 0.5 cm extra space is added to the bottom margin
Smitshuijzen AbiFarès, Huda. The Modern Arabic Book: Design as Agent of Cultural Progress / 411
for optical adjustment (to give an impression of an even margin all around). Typesetting Arabic
text with ample leading and margins is also dictated by the justified text alignment. In addition to
making the text less visually dense, and helping the eye move from one line of text to the following
one, this generous line spacing has its origins in the nineteenth century (American) book design
aesthetic which was brought into Arabic book design conventions by the western missionary
presses in the Middle East. This preference for airy and visually light pages was perceived
as lending a modern clarity to the text, devoid of clutter and ornament, along pragmatic and
functional design principles. This type of typesetting came to represent the publications of Arab
modernity, but have now become so familiar that they are hardly challenged or questioned
by readers or publishers—and most book designers. By comparison, the density of the older
manuscripts, with bolder lettering and densely set lines of text, giving the pages a more ‘woven
textile’ visual quality has been lost and is considered unreadable.
The older generous linespacing was also dictated by the handset metal typesetting of early
printing technology; while in recent digital typesetting technology, this limitation is no longer
a valid limitation. This removal of technical limitations gives designers today the option to
reconsider this convention and possibly to return to a bolder and more densely typeset text—
similar to the text setting found in current Arabic newspapers.
5.2.2.2. Overall structure and navigation
Structural organization and navigation through the Arabic book has moved very quickly
from the beginning of typographic printing, away from the Arabic manuscript tradition to that
of modern Western book design conventions. The earliest models followed the American/English
structure, and the later and most prevalent (until very recently) was the French model. In both
traditions page numbering came to replace the use of catch words1110 as guides for bookbinders. The
use of title pages that repeated the information on the book cover in more concise and simplified
form replaced the opening page with the decorative ornamental page. Then the opening page
of the text with its decorative frontispiece, known as the sarlawḥ, was gradually phased out, first
in the form of a simple calligraphic inscription, a basmala or a more secular variation on that,
and then disappeared altogether by having the text of the opening page start at 1/3 down the page,
leaving the space originally occupied by the frontispiece totally blank, as if catching one’s breath
before starting to read the text. These ‘visual silences’ were of course even more exaggerated and
employed freely in poetry books.
1110 Catch words are words placed at the bottom of
the page, that consist of the first word of the following page, and used as guides
to the book binder to indicate the right page sequence.
Smitshuijzen AbiFarès, Huda. The Modern Arabic Book: Design as Agent of Cultural Progress / 412
More modern, international, structural features were applied and became the norm for
modern Arabic books. The contents pages were adopted and used either at the back of the book
(as in the French book convention) or at the start of the book (as in the English book convention).
Slowly the convention required a specific structural order, starting with half-title page, followed by
a title page, a copyright page (sometimes combined with the colophon that was also moved from
the end of the book to the front), followed by a number of front matter texts such as a dedication
page, a preface, an introduction and so forth. If the structure of the text consisted of clear sections
(such as in short stories or topical essays), then the book had clear section dividers. Novels and
fiction had fewer subdivisions in the text other than the chapter number and titles, subtitles and
main texts. Footnotes and other marginal information was placed at the bottom of the pages,
separated by a blank space and/or thin black line, and set in a smaller type size—as opposed to
being placed in the margins as in the old manuscript tradition. This tradition is returning to Arabic
book typesetting, but is still not widely spread.
In all aspects of contemporary globalized visual culture, there is more variety and
‘sampling’ from other cultures and design disciplines. Young designers select from a plethora
of styles and ideas readily available online. The growing number of designers and their exposure
to international design trends are slowly eroding age–old traditions. Designers that are more
culturally conscious use new media to recreate and reinterpret the look of an idealized Arabic
book—thus perpetuating the age-old exchange between traditional Arabic and modern
international book design structures.
5.2.3. Systematic design: series and book covers
The cover is probably the most important part of the physiognomy of a book. In shaping its
style and image one conveys the tone of voice of the book’s content, namely the impression that
the publisher intends to convey about the content.1111 This holds particularly true for modern
Arabic novels and fiction. The publisher’s interest in the cover, motivated by marketing their books,
has only increased in contemporary international publishing. In Arab publishing, covers take
precedence over the design of the inside pages of the book. The latter is often left in the hands
of independent specialized typesetters that also do copy editing and corrections (or even offer
typing services for manuscripts that are handwritten).
The concept of visible series started with the maturity of publishing in the Arab world from
the 1950s onwards. Series were arranged thematically to organize a publisher’s collection, assigning
a distinctive visual language for each, with specific color palettes, typefaces, formats and layout
1111 Op. cit. Leonhardt Santini, 286.
Smitshuijzen AbiFarès, Huda. The Modern Arabic Book: Design as Agent of Cultural Progress / 413
templates. The main focus of this systematic design template was the cover—the first interface
with the reader. Branding became important in differentiating one publisher from the other, this
led publishing houses to acquire a logotype which was placed on the front cover (often also on
the back cover), the book’s spine, and inside on the title page. This was modeled conceptually after
the renowned Western publishers such as Penguin Books, Pelican Books, Flammarion, Gallimard,
Hachette, and others.
Popular visual culture (newspapers, popular magazines, film and advertising)—a mix of
American/Western aesthetics and local (Egyptian) popular culture—formed the new modern
design aesthetic that found its way to the design of Arabic book covers. The cover design became
more expressive, colorful, the title rendered in more expressive lettering, hand-drawn by either
the illustrator or by a trained calligrapher (who often signed their name on the cover), or using
a myriad of eclectic typefaces that were produced as transfer type by companies like Letraset and
Mecanorma. The styles of illustration (paintings, drawings, collages or photography) were equally
as varied and developed in style with the changing artistic trends and technologies of the periods
they were produced in. The possibilities of creating new designs that reference the old book cover
styles has increased in recent years; a wealth of diverse design styles are found, ranging from the
austere modernist typographic covers, to the nostalgic painted covers, to the high contrast black
and white illustrations inspired by comics and graphic novels.
5.3. Digital media and new reading patterns
The complex negotiation between reviving, then shedding heritage, in favor of innovation,
may not be specific to Arab culture today, but rather a universal concern globally. Heritage
preservation has been growing in resistance to a perceived global Americanization of culture,
and in the name of preservation of cultural diversity and creativity. In the Arab world the embrace
of Western lifestyles and customs has increased, and by this triggered an ultraconservative reaction
within these societies. However, the dominant trends in wealthy Arab societies remain open to
a multiplicity of aesthetics and ideas, thus generating an eclectic popular visual culture.
The other aspect of new media is the growing need to communicate locally and to present
oneself internationally. In the Arab World this has been true for all aspects of urban design and
communications media. Bilingual (and often dual-script) textual information has proliferated and
come to represent the visual culture of most Arab nations. The flexibility in reading bidirectionally
—in opposite directions; from right-to-left and then left-to-right simultaneously—has contributed
Smitshuijzen AbiFarès, Huda. The Modern Arabic Book: Design as Agent of Cultural Progress / 414
to a flexibility in accepting different and nonlinear structures of information. This ability to process
bilingual information simultaneously will have future implications for reading online or on mobile
devices. The ability of the younger generation that grew up with reading online have a natural
ease with browsing through text simultaneously on multiple online platforms. This new kind of
multitasking readers will require new types of texts and book design structures that evolving
reading patterns.
It remains to be seen which of the printed book conventions will stay and which ones will be
replaced, as more and more books find their way into screen-based readers for e-books and other
interactive online publishing platforms, such as the aptly named The Institute of the Future of the
Book—“a small think-and-do tank investigating the evolution of intellectual discourse as it shifts
from printed pages to networked screens.”1112 In one of the articles published through this platform,
Leah Tether discusses what medieval publishing could teach contemporary publishers about
reading online in the digital age.1113 Logically and inversely we could question what the implication
of these online and digital media will have for the old-fashioned printed book and our future
reading and thinking patterns. What would be considered modern in the future and how are ‘book’
designers going to conceive ‘navigational aids’ in a ‘non-sequential’, imagery-saturated, and
‘interactive reading’ environment.1114 How are they going to figure out a mutable customized book
design that meets the ‘personalization’ ideal increasingly promised to readers and customers.
1112 The Institute for the Future of
the Book, 30 November 2014 http://futureofthebook.org
1113 Leah Tether, “Mise en page, mise en écran,” LOGOS, 25.1, 2014, 21–36. Cf. Sara De Bondt, The Form of
(London: Occasional Papers, 2010).
1114 Ibid. Tether, 21–36.
the Book Book. 2nd ed.
Smitshuijzen AbiFarès, Huda. The Modern Arabic Book: Design as Agent of Cultural Progress / 415
A brief concluding remark
Books are the façade of a culture behind which lie the creative and the collaborative effort
of many courageous individuals, those that have dared to open their minds to other cultures
and nations, and that have adopted various ideologies with the goal of effecting positive change
in their own societies. They have come from diverse backgrounds and nationalities: educators,
missionaries, political activists, journalists, writers, poets, printers, typographers, typesetters,
artists and designers. Some have assumed the role of the publisher, the cultural conductor that
coordinates the intellectual, artistic and technical aspects of this form of cultural production that
is a book. These visionary individuals engaged responsibly in their chosen cultural missions,
and with a select group of authors, designers, and artists, they have created books that have had
lasting effects on Arab visual culture, and have propelled a new form of intellectual awareness
for generations to come. Their collective endeavor offers a lesson on not only the important
medium that the printed book has assumed since Gutenberg, but also on how to go further with
creating new literary works that enrich the mind, and that match each new generation’s modes
of communication and lifestyles. I believe that we will continue to read, write and design, and
that the essential principles of these activities will come to define what constitutes ‘a book’ and
will remain constant since they are the essential code of humanity’s cultural DNA.
xxx