Typography: Old Art

Conceptual Framework
2.1. Typography
Typography is one of the old Art called sometimes black art. Types itself have begun as a kind of hand marks which looked as a basis of worlds written alphabetic. Drawing was the first step for ideas representations which has been pictures turned into pictograms. It has been discovered in different etches on bones and on cave walls and later have been carved into clay. Due to the limitation in showing actions and ideas effectively, ideograph has replaced pictograph which is ultimately evolved into precursors of letterforms. In its turn, letterforms combined into words. Writing defined as “all signs and figures formed by drawing, transferred on any material the feelings and ideas among humans within and from

There are many differences between Latin and Arabic scrips, for example: the base line feature of Arabic is only secondary to the individual letter shapes and the script sets down the rules about in what way the letters from an alphabet are allowed to be used. Arabic script governs the connection between the individual letters, the base line, the ligatures (a single composite glyph of two or three characters), ..etc.
Shape term is used to distinct between the basic shapes of Arabic letters and the forces that work on these individual letters shapes to create the ductus of the script. These forces can be alignment on a base line, connection to previous and following letters and sophisticated styles of writing. Since letters change according to their word position, Arabic set of glyph may range to more than 100 shapes.
Arabic script has some challenging characteristics for any designers as he has to study their different multi-level baselines, multi-context joining, words and letters joining as a group, joining direction, teeth letters,…etc. The most characteristic term used in describing the connected letters with a strong baseline is ductus which made up out of three important changes of the letters:
a. Cursive writing became a style (as opposed to angular writing, carved in

The term calligraphy used to describe beauty writing in an aesthetic way with a pencil, brush, bamboo, etc… on a paper or ideographic equipment by arranging aesthetically the spaces between letters following different design rules. Calligraphy word comes from Greek word “calligrah as, kallos; beauty, graphos; writing, writer, written”. Although the development phase for writing and calligraphy is the same, but they have been treated differently in the process of development. They are sharing the general same rule but differ in perceiving them. Writing perceived as a language courier system with its significant signs used to communicate among people; meanwhile calligraphy carries different aesthetical values that are the basic for its artistic