Design concept

Greta Text Arabic is a modern newspaper typeface, carefully sculpted in the spirit of the Naskhi calligraphic style, the most legible and suitable Arabic style for running text. Intended as a companion to Greta Text, it translates the principles of Greta Text into the Arabic script and writing system. Greta Text Arabic is sharp and crisp, serious and clear.

It is optimised for newspaper setting thanks to its generous counters, relatively short ascenders and descenders, fairly high stroke contrast and use of shapes familiar to its intended audience. It sits comfortably on the baseline, deftly guiding the eye, and is thus well suited to kashida justification, a vital requirement for newspaper setting.

Just like its Latin counterpart, Greta Text Arabic enjoys a strong character in small sizes, but is also quite useful at display sizes.
Read more about the development of Greta Text Arabic.

Styles & Grades

Greta Text Arabic comes in four weights, each accompanied by three grades, which are basically three versions of each weight differing slightly in heaviness, allowing the designer to choose the right ‘colour’ of the text. Within each weight, however, the grades have the same widths. Greta Text Arabic is the first Arabic typeface to include grades for the finest degree of typographic control.
More about grades.

Author

Greta Text Arabic was designed between 2010 and 2012 by Kristyan Sarkis. In 2012, it was awarded a Certificate of Excellence in Type Design by the Type Directors Club.