design | Arabic Calligraphy

Latin or Arabic?

Being born in France, the first language I learned to write was French with its Latin alphabet. My passion for Arabic calligraphy started later when I was a student.

I was attracted by the harmony and the flow of the Arabic letters and got offered the possibility to be trained by a Master. I focused initially on the Diwani style for which I received an intensive training. When I felt more comfortable with Diwani, I tried the Koufi style which is more geometric. In fact, this style is usually integrating architectural elements.

example

Full of imagination, I noticed that Arabic letters written with Koufi style were showing geometrical similarities with Latin letters.

The letter “noun” can look like an “i”

The letter “ain” can look like an “e”

The letter “waw” can look like a “g”

The letter “alif” can look like a “l”

etc.

And for the letters that are not so similar, I noticed that you could split the Arabic letters into basic elements that can be combined subtly to appear like a Latin letter.

Take away:

Arabic calligraphy has a rich panel of styles and scripts

Calligraphers with imagination can be very playful

It is possible to write a text with Latin letters and make it look like Arabic

Zoomorphism in Calligraphy

Zoomorphism comes from the Greek ζωον (zōon), meaning “animal”, and μορφη (morphē), meaning “shape” or “form”. In calligraphy, it is the art of writing a text and make the lines of the letters form the shape of an animal.

This art is very popular in Arabic calligraphy and there are different methods to make it possible. Each method helps adding more realism into the materialization of the animal.

Linear – Easy to read

The first one consists in filling the space without changing the way you write. Basically, you write in lines and the shape will appear because you start and stop the line at a specific position. With this method, it is only the outline that will be visible.

Linear plus – Easy to recognize

In order to increase the subtlety of the design, you can opt for modifying the way you space the words and letters. Visually, this effect will modify the density of the ink and will make it possible to materialize shapes inside the outline. The free space can optionally be filled with ink in order to give some perspective or to add a lighting effet

Organic – The animal looks realistic.

Next step would be to extend some letters in order to follow more organically the lines of the animal. This method brings more realism and allows us to clearly distinguish legs, wings, head, hairs from the body. In order to help building some realism, words are not necessarily following horizontal lines. Lines can be curved in order to naturally follow some key elements defining the animal. The text becomes more difficult to read

Realist – The animal is “alive”

Next step is to forget about the lines and the order of the words and to focus on the key lines of the drawings. In this case, each word is positioned following a geometrical logic rather than the meaning of the sentence. The word is following perfectly the main lines of the animal. You can also define zones according to lighting effect or texture contrast in order to increase the realism of the calligraphy. With this method, it is also possible to give the animal an expression or the feeling of a movement.

The Drop, a popular shape

The famous logo of “Al-Jazeera” is calligraphic design. In Arabic, “al-Jazeera” means “the island” as a reference to the peninsula shape of Qatar. The logo was selected by Hamad bin Khalifa, the emir of Qatar, as the winning entry in a design competition. The Al Jazeera logo was not designed by a professional graphic designer or marketing firm. It was designed by a calligrapher.

The logo represents the shape of a drop of water which is considered in the Islamic world as the most precious invention of God after humanity. In Persian dictionary, the first word is “ab” which mean water and “abadan” for “civilized”. Water is a vital element, the symbol of life.

For calligraphers, the drop shape is also a gift. In figurative calligraphy, it is important to find a natural match between the shape of letters and the lines of the figure. Most words in Arabic start with the particle “Al” (ال) which corresponds grammatically to the definite article. It literally translate as “the”. For example, kitaab (كتاب) means book and al kitaab (الكتاب) means “the book”.

As you can notice, these 2 letters are vertical and are on the right side as Arabic language writes from right to left. The right side of the shape of a water drop is delimited by a semi-vertical line which can easily be outlined by a Alif and a Lam.

The rest of the word can fill the drop’s shape with a certain freedom. In the Arabic calligraphy, the ending is relatively free which makes it easy to close the shape. The graphical options for the middle of the word which will fill the inner part of the drop are numerous.

Take away

Drop shape is very popular in Arabic or Islamic culture because of the high value of Water

drop shape is very popular among calligrapher because of its simple shape that matches geometrically a lot of words.

The beauty of Arabic letters

The beauty of Arabic letters has always fascinated me. Their shape, curves, flow, strength are magic, inspirational. When I was kid, I used to make drawings full of life, colors mostly representing with names sceneries from my vacations in Morocco. While student, I was lucky to be offered calligraphy courses by a master. Calligraphy was back again in my life. I spent numerous hours, days and weeks copying and copying again the alphabet in Diwani script seeking the perfect hand writing.

In parallel, my dream was to make figurative designs using calligraphy. I self-trained myself during many years using models such as belly dancers, ships, flowers, animals. I self-developed the necessary skills to achieve this goal. My activity was still very private.
Later, friends, colleagues recommended me to create my own page and spread my experience. Initially designed to reach my friends only, many new visitors from all countries started to see my artwork and the first order came. It was for a tattoo. I have never thought about this before and I took the challenge. The idea was great, the design quite difficult and the customer trusted me.
Since then, I have been enjoying making lettering designs for tattoos. It is complex because the space is limited and there are many other constraints. I love this type of challenges. This excites my creativity, enriches my technique and makes me feel proud. Knowing that people are engraving my creations on their skin is an honor.
Today, I have designed already few thousands tattoos and still, I always have the same fun when new orders are coming. They are never the same and this activity goes far beyond taking a pen, a paper, some ink and draw. Tattoo design is an invitation into people’s life, believes, experience and values.
Arabic calligraphy is perfect for tattoo as it offers the possibility to:

- express your feeling
- show your soul
- show beauty, fineness or strength
- visualize your idea
- be either discreet or expressive

I am happy that I can have the flexibility to adapt to most of the requests. My customers define the entire components:

- readable or unreadable for non-initiated persons
- big, small size, long tall, compact, etc.
- figurative or abstract
- names, quotes, poems

The only aspect that makes me say no to some customer is the compatibility between the size of the text and the size of the tattoo. It is important for the long life of tattoos that lines are thick enough, that the spacing between lines is large enough. On paper, everything is possible. On the skin, it is another story…

This pages aims at inspiring you by showing a lot of examples that I designed and showing you videos describing the maturation process.

Please have fun and do not hesitate to contact me if you wish to realize your dream with a wonderful customized tattoo design.