Efforts being complete to reaffirm Arab identity at corporate level Dubai: There isn’t enough Arabic typefaces, said typographer Tarek Atrissi. It wasn’t so much an inspection as it was a declaration. One that obviously shouts out there is high demand for Arabic fonts, less supply.

Type designers Tarek Attrisi and Nadine Chahine speak about The Modern Arabic typeface in a workshop with students at the Tashkeel, Nad Al Sheba, and Dubai.

This fact is without help encouraging type designers and graphic design students in the Middle East to do something about it. That something was clear from Atrissi’s current workshop titled Arabesque, Identity and Arabic Typography, organized by Nuqat Design Conference 2012, where students were sketching forms of Arabic lettering.

There is an explosion in branding. For exclusive branding – whether it is signage or a logo – you need an exclusive typographic voice. Companies are pointed for unique typefaces. Companies are trying to repeat the Arab identity on a corporate level.

The co-host of the workshop, type designer Nadine Chahine, added: “Companies in the Gulf have extra budgets for branding. Given that typeface is an essential ingredient, there is new interest in Arabic type. Now some of these students at the workshop may be able to expand the letters they have sketched keen on a system and further extend it into a font.”

Chahine works at Linotype, Germany, a global contributor of superior quality typographic products and services. She has more than 18 fonts to her glory with the best-selling Frutiger Arabic and Koufiya.