Articles about 29LT’s font releases, bespoke typefaces, design projects, and interviews with Pascal Zoghbi. Visit www.29LT.com to license the fonts.
29Letters Type Foundry S.L. [29LT] is dedicated to creating and publishing multiscript typefaces. Its Arabic and Latin typography leading edge arises from its collaborative team of professional Arab and European type designers crafting high-quality typefaces. Besides publishing unique retail fonts, 29LT frequently joins forces with renowned international branding, design, and advertising agencies to deliver high-end typographic solutions, such as bespoke fonts and wordmarks.
29LT was named after the conventional Arabic 28 letter alphabet, but with a divergent-thinking, bold and daring design approach integrating the hamza as the 29th letter. With a typographic work incorporating multiple scripts, 29LT is committed not only to exploring the diversity and potential of Arabic typography but also to tapping into other world scripts.
29Letters Type Foundry S.L. is based and registered in Madrid/Spain with tax number: ESB67990366.
Address: Paseo Imperial 39, 2C, 28005 Madrid, Spain.
29LT was founded and is run by Pascal Zoghbi.
29LT Idris Pure and Round expand the Neo Naskh Idris type family, offering twenty versatile styles for diverse visual communication. Pure simplifies forms for minimal, legible text, while Round adds a friendly tone. Both preserve advanced Arabic typographic logic, bridging calligraphy with modern design technology for refined, adaptable type solutions.
29LT Idris is a modern typeface blending Arabic Naskh with Serif Latin features, available in Sharp and Flat versions, each offering five weights. Its design, inspired by historical influences, has been enhanced using advanced technology, ensuring improved legibility for both body text and display use, with a significant focus on Arabic calligraphic standards.
The evolution of typography in digital media highlights the shift from static to dynamic type solutions, where variable fonts allow for flexibility and adaptability. 29LT’s multi-script variable fonts combine traditional calligraphic styles with modern functionality, enabling users to manipulate design spaces and enhance web performance, while providing various aesthetic and functional applications.
The 29LT Azahar type family includes Text and Display categories, each with five weights in both Latin and Cyrillic, and a Neo-Naskh/Neo-Thuluth hybrid Arabic style. The versatile variable font format allows extensive weight and optical size control, making it suitable for various design needs. The typeface reflects a blend of diverse cultures and a 29LT’s commitment to creating multi-script typefaces.
29LT Zarid Sans Hanzi is a sans-serif typeface (or Heiti for sans-serif Chinese typefaces) that draws inspiration from calligraphy, revisiting its roots with a modern twist.
29LT Ada is a contemporary type design based on the Ruqʿah Arabic calligraphic style. It is a superfamily of Sharp, Flat, and Round typeface s, each in 6 weights, adding up to 18 styles. With all of its variants, Ada is the largest Ruqʿah-based type system to date. Challenging the boundaries of the style, it acts as a strong visual communication tool with different typographic voices.
Concept and design solutions created for the visual identity of the Kingdom of Bahrain pavilion in Expo 2020 Dubai.
Zarid Sans is a fresh, clean, contemporary design. Its robust outlines stem from calligraphic structures. Its letterforms are open, and friendly yet precise. This understanding of the visual grammar of the family was a pre-requisite for the design of the Devanagari. When designing for scripts that are structurally very different from each other, it is important that the respective characteristics of the scripts are retained and celebrated while co-existing in the design space.
29LT Oskura is the second interpretation of the diverse handwritings found in the Aljamiado manuscripts and works as a fluid alternate to 29LT Okaso. Its humanistic design approach is built on the concept of the progressing pen. It is not rough and grungy as the writings in the manuscript are, but retains the flow of handwriting and presents the letterforms in clean outlines.
29LT Okaso stands out from standard Arabic fonts, both in aesthetics and functionality. It embodies a fascinating typographical experiment that actually works particularly well when seeking harmonious contrast between enigmatic and mystical overtones and contemporary designs.
29LT is progressing from a bi-script Arabic and Latin digital type industry into a multi-script fonts entity. The global market we live in and the continuous integration of different cultures is demanding the need for multi-script type systems.
First additions are the Cyrillic and Greek scripts to 29LT Zarid Sans typeface making it cover four scripts; the Arabic, Cyrillic, Greek, and Latin scripts.
29LT Zawi is a multipurpose typeface that was designed with a maximum legibility focus and an ease of usability mindset. Its simplified and vibrant design works perfectly well for a variety of projects, from fun and urban to serious and corporate ones.
29LT Zarid Display features a large range of weights offering typographic hierarchical solutions in bi-script Arabic and Latin layouts. Its contrasted pen strokes make it ideal for brave headlines and titles whilst being stylish and valiant.
Modern, clean, and sturdy, 29LT Zarid Slab lends itself well for assertive displays and comfortable text readings.
29LT Zarid Text displays advanced but softer features. Improved legibility in small point size and habitual appearance are its key characteristics. More calligraphy-influenced with a greater variation in line width, it does offer improved legibility and clearer interlinear space. The range of weights also provides suitable typographic hierarchical solutions in bi-script Arabic and Latin layouts. This reader-friendly typeface is quite useful for diverse long running texts, such as magazines and books, and it works well with both digital and print applications. Its fashionable feel makes it aesthetically functional in display typographic setting too.
Versatile, elegant and easy to ready, 29LT Zarid Sans gives diverse typesetting options. It is a clean, crisp and legible typeface that is proper, though not exclusive, to setting body copy texts both in print and digital mediums. It also works perfectly well when used in large display type.
29LT Zarid Serif embodies a sense of elegance, vitality and robustness. The typeface is suitable for a vast array of literature and educational publications besides branding and design projects.
29LT Azer is approachable without being sloppy, serious but not conformist. The typeface fuses charm, simplicity, and consideration. The Arabic and the Latin mirror each other’s appearances much like fraternal twins with compatible attitudes. Azer Latin is earnest and sincere whereas Azer Arabic is direct and austere. The various weights make this typeface suitable for refined copy-text as well as chunky titles and in-text emphasis.
29LT Riwaya is a practical and intelligible multiscript typeface family with character and voice. Each script has its own signature harmoniously articulated with the overall typeface family specifics. 29LT Riwaya brings clarity and accessibility to lengthy and encumbered texts while allowing for typographic hierarchy that creates contrast between elements. The differentiation of narrative levels and the natural, pleasant and readable textures make this typeface ideal for literature and story-telling.
Azal – which means old in Arabic – is a blast from the past that looks impactful in the present. It has both the flair of old eastern Kufic manuscripts and the modern-day touch, making it a clear and boisterous display font.
With its modern simplistic arrangement in all of its weight variations, 29LT Bukra is go-to typeface for corporate strong headlines and slogans as well as branding applications. The font’s clean and polished outlines allow for powerful corporate identities, while the typeface’s crisp structure portrays bold and memorable messages. It is a type family with endless visuals representations allowing it to be used in an infinite number of graphical applications. Bukra is mainly a display typeface but the lighter styles can be also used for short body texts.
29LT Baseet is driven by the idea that less is more. The design elements are pared down to the essential. The fonts were designed within a simplified Arabic character set and a monospaced Latin design, along with rounded terminals, enhancing the script’s simplicity and friendly appeal. All of these qualities make Baseet suitable for a diverse range of projects, from fun and urban to serious and corporate ones.
29LT Makina is an evocative typewriter font arising from a series of experiments. It makes a retro statement that offers a standout vintage vibe with a cutting-edge hint.
29LT Arapix’s unique and contemporary pixel approach makes it a perfect titling and display font. It is a funky and expressive typeface inspired from the primitive pixel technology but with vibrant modern characteristics. It can be used for both very low-resolution and high-resolution screens as well as for prints.
29LT UA Neo B and N are a tribute to Nasri Khattar’s pioneering work and a statement on the growing importance and power of contemporary Arabic typography. They are an invitation to explore the fascinating potential of UA fonts, especially when it comes to modernizing Arabic, Urdu, Farsi, or any other language using the Arabic alphabet.
The fluent and smooth curves of Massira Pen make it suitable to give a vibrant punch to publications like comics, whereas the rough and grungy feel of Spray, Lipstick and TippEx styles makes them appropriate to add an urban or revolutionary edge to unconventional projects.
29LT BLOG 