On Expanding Connections (AKA Making it Fit)

TYPO Labs 2018 How far can we go? | Thursday, 12 April | 12:00 pm | Nave | English

Since the printing of Arabic with early metal movable types, many compromises have been made to adapt the script with a technology not designed for its specific needs. One such compromise is the ‘Kashida’ or ‘Tatweel’; today a separate character with a designated unicode codepoint, traditionally, the kashida is an extended variant of letterforms. This talk will discuss the historic context and use of the Arabic extension, and demonstrate how, by using variable font technology, the long standing issue of organic extensions can be resolved to make possible a more dynamic typesetting for the Arabic script. While this talk focuses on the Arabic script, the methods can also be extended to other connecting writing systems, as well as Latin script styles.

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Sahar Afshar

Type designer, Researcher (Iran)

Sahar Afshar is a type designer and researcher from Iran. Her interest in typography during her years as a student at the University of Tehran led her to the University of Reading, from which she holds an MA by Research in Typography & Graphic Communication. Since graduation, she has been…
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José Miguel Solé Bruning

Senior Font Developer at Dalton Maag (Chile)

José Solé is a Chilean Type Designer. After studying Graphic Design at Universidad Diego Portales he joined Dalton Maag as a Font Developer in 2013. He has participated on projects for clients such as Amazon, Canonical, Google, Intel, Nokia and Under Armour, as well as on some of Dalton Maag's…

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