Abstract/Summary

Gulzar is a contemporary Urdu Nasta’liq typeface – with a bespoke Latin counterpart – designed and developed through collaboration by Borna Izadpanah (Principal Designer and Project Leader), Simon Cozens (Font Engineering), Alice Savoie (Designer, Gulzar Latin), Fiona Ross (Consultant, Gulzar Urdu), Amir Mahdi Moslehi (Calligraphic adviser, Gulzar Urdu) and Martin Dodds (Consultant, Gulzar Urdu). This typeface has been designed to provide an effective textual communication tool primarily for Urdu readers on digital platforms and in print. In Gulzar the aim has been to produce a typeface which is legible at text sizes and suitable for sustained reading. There was a heavy research component to the first phase of this project which involved conducting research into the history of Urdu digital typefaces, their designs and production processes from the early 1980s. The latter was informative in the design process of Gulzar and its software engineering, while the shaping of Gulzar typeforms was inspired by carefully selected specimens of Urdu calligraphy and lettering which were closely studied to achieve an accurate representation of the Urdu flavour of the Nasta’liq style. The Latin counterpart took inspiration from two eminent humanistic references: the types of Robert Granjon’s coupled with Hendrik van den Keere’s work. The Latin letterforms thus feature some subtle references to their calligraphic roots and echo the contrast present in the Nasta’liq, while retaining their classical typographic proportions. Gulzar is not the first OpenType Nasta’liq typeface, but it is the first Nasta’liq type for which an original Latin counterpart was designed. It covers all the required transliterations characters to transcribe Arabic, Persian and Urdu languages.