Designing in two directions

A design system written for Latin type is not a neutral container. It carries assumptions in its numbers, and some of those numbers actively damage Arabic.

Tracking

Our system tightens letter-spacing as type grows — up to -0.02em at display sizes. In Latin that pulls a headline into a single confident block. In Arabic it pulls connected letters into their neighbours and damages the joins. Arabic is set at zero.

Leading

The system sets display type at line-height 1.0. Arabic ascenders and descenders are taller than the Latin ones that number was chosen for, so 1.0 clips them outright. Arabic display sizes get 1.25.

Everything else transferred untouched: the black canvas, the zero radii, the colour ration, the 120 and 240 pixel rhythm. Those are script-independent. The two we changed were not.