Boutros-URW Franklin Gothic Arabic

A new bilingual Arabic-Latin language typeface developed in response to the fast growing Arabic market has been unveiled by Global Graphics’ font foundry URW++.

Boutros-URW Franklin Gothic Arabic is the result of a unique collaboration between London-based Boutros which has specialized in Arabic fonts since 1966, and URW++ the designers of fonts for Mercedes Benz, Siemens, General Motors, Blizzard (Activision), and developers of the highly -uccessful Latin face URW Franklin Gothic.

The new typeface is a happy marriage whereby the clean lines of the Latin URW Franklin Gothic Arabic have inspired the development of the Arabic companion typeface.

“The Arabic market has been fast-growing since the 1980s,” said Mourad Boutros, “and bilingual typefaces are in demand. Our aim is to work with professional type foundries like URW++ that have successful Latin fonts.  We worked the Arabic font design around their Latin font and the result is a modern, aesthetically pleasing Arabic face available in four weights, light, book, medium, and demi.”

“Bilingual fonts need to be visually compatible with each other.” said Frank Steitiya of URW++. “We took Boutros’ beautiful Arabic design and converted it into the OpenType/TrueType Format. We’ve also written supporting technical documentation so that it can be implemented successfully by graphic designers. It is suitable for virtually all communications from headlines to body copy in all bilingual Arabic-Latin languages.”

Boutros-URW Franklin Gothic Arabic is designed for maximum legibility, especially at small point sizes. The spaces between characters and between leadings have been condensed, giving high "x" heights and wider white areas. This has made the new typeface especially suitable for setting body text in manuals, directories, dictionaries, and the like.

The new typeface is based upon the highly-acclaimed Latin typeface Franklin Gothic, which was designed in 1902 by Morris Fuller Benton. It was named after Benjamin Franklin, one of the most prolific American printers. Franklin Gothic has been widely used in press and advertising applications for more than a hundred years. While some minor adjustments have been necessary to accommodate digitisation and changes in printing techniques, Franklin Gothic remains one of the most successful fonts of all time.