29LT IDRIS: A Naskh Type System

29LT Idris, a type system, skillfully blends Arabic Naskh styles with Latin Serif and Sans Serif styles, creating a rich typographic bi-script type family. It offers four versions: Sharp, Flat, Pure, and Round, each with five weights, resulting in a total of twenty styles. As a versatile visual communication tool, Idris offers four distinct hierarchical typographical voices. While all versions are suitable for display or copy text, the Sharp version is recommended for display text, the Flat and Pure versions for copy text, and the Round version for casual text. Generally, the Sharp and Flat styles are associated with formal text, while the Pure and Round styles can represent modern and informal text.

A contemporary Arabic Naskh inspired by a 1950s typeface, Berthold Arabisch Halbfett Nr. 49, Idris draws from calligraphic logic and offers a unique design approach and high legibility. The font’s modern design breathes new life into the typeface using the latest Arabic font technology.

Built with advanced OpenType features, Idris includes calligraphic baseline slant, contextual alternates guided by Arabic calligraphic rules, contextual dots and accents positioning to avoid overlaps, contextual elevation kerning, leading edge kerning for escalating Arabic typefaces, and stylistic sets for added typographic flexibility and elegance.

Idris Sharp and Idris Flat share a common variable font with three axes: Weight, Contrast, and Extension. Contrast shifts between Sharp and Flat letterforms, while Extension adjusts Arabic cup width and baseline elongation. Idris Pure and Idris Round have separate variable fonts with three axes each: Weight, Swash, and Kashida. Swash affects Arabic cup width, while Kashida affects kashida elongation.

With enhanced opentype features and variable font axes, Idris empowers modern digital typesetters to wield Arabic calligraphic tools. It allows precise justification of Arabic texts and determines desired word width. As a unique variable font tool, it may be the first of its kind.

Why It Is a Top Pick
Traditionally, the Naskh style is accompanied by the Ruqʿah style, which adds typographic hierarchies to Arabic layouts. Therefore, the 29LT Idris font can be accompanied by the 29LT Ada fonts, as well as any other 29LT typefaces based on the Neo-Naskh style or even Kufic geometric ones. The font technology present within it makes it one of the best Arabic typefaces available in the market, providing users with advanced typographic tools within beautifully crafted glyph outlines.