Teresa Shannon- Typeface- 10/9/13

http://ilovetypography.com/2013/09/25/harir-reducing-noise-in-arabic-script/

This typeface was designed to increase the negative white space in Arabic and Persian writing.   As a student of Arabic one of the hardest things for me is to go from reading textbooks made specifically for beginning students to the incredibly complex looking newspapers, published books, and magazines.  The typeface shown above is described in the accompanying article as "emphasizing the black zones and creates two parallel white zones, leading the eye smoothly across the text. Noise around word shapes is reduced, letter combinations are more consistent, and the essential structure of the conventional letterforms is preserved." Because this concept might be hard to understand for someone who is not familiar with the Arabic language I have also included a picture of more complex script below.  The difference is in how clearly the lines of text are delineated, how much space there is between sentences, and how close the letters are set to each other.