Where Latin and Arabic Meet: A Bridging of Two Alphabets

Wonderful piece from The New Yorker on Lebanese designer Rana Abou Rjeily's creation of Mirsaal, a typeface family expressly designed to work in both the Latin and Arabic alphabets. In Mirsaal, the calligraphic Arabic alphabet is rendered in a detached-print type that reads more similarly to the Latin print alphabet, reviving twentieth-century attempts to create an Arabic more legible to Westerners. The use in text books of typefaces such as Mirsaal, which means 'messenger' in Arabic could be a boon for Western students taking their first steps in recognising and learning Arabic words.