OpenBookING is a gimmick or novelty font that has letters on pages of a book. It is caps only and monospaced. The letters on the upper-case keys are on the left-handed pages of an open book and the letters on the lower-case keys are the same letters but on the right-handed pages of an open book. One could alternate upper and lower case keys to get letters on complete books, but the Opentype feature of contextual alternatives (calt) does this automatically. Several previous typefaces from IngrimayneType used the calt feature to alternate shapes that fit together in an interlocking pattern, such as alternating concave and convex shapes. OpenBookING uses the calt feature in a different way, to alternate two halves of a symmetrical shape. To provide two copies of numbers and common symbols, some non-alphabetical characters are unavailable because their slots were taken by the second form of the number or common symbol. If stylistic set one (ss01) is turned on, spaces are replaced with empty pages. This may leave you with unwanted spaces at the end of lines, and to eliminate them, turn off the feature (or change the font) for these spaces. The empty pages can be used in a layer to add color to the text. There is also a second set of empty pages with a filled page that can also be used in layers. (See poster for examples.) These pages are on the (logicalnot multiply) and (register divide) characters for the first set and on the (ordmasculine ellipsis) and (macron trademark) keys for the second set. Finally, OpenBookING has a large set of accented characters if anyone should need them. The letters used on the books were derived from the font Myhota-Bold. For a related typeface of letters on book covers, see NewLibrary. OpenBookING has limited uses and is priced accordingly.

AwanZaman has a three-phase story, beginning with Dr Mamoun Sakkal’s two Arabic styles and culminating with Juliet Shen’s Latin extension. AwanZaman started as simply Awan, a commission for a modern, clean, monoline typeface for writing headlines and story titles in a forward-thinking Kuwaiti newspaper. Awan was based on the geometric forms of Kufic script, while in phase two, a second typeface (Zaman) was designed to add enough calligraphic Naskh details to make it easy to read in demanding newspaper settings. Together these two phases give the typeface a warm, familiar, and progressive look, as well as an explanatory two-part name — AwanZaman. Since most editorials use typical Naskh headline fonts with an exaggerated baseline, Awan’s rational forms immediately distinguish it as a modern and progressive voice in the crowded field of Arabic editorial typefaces. As the companion Arabic typeface, Zaman has the same basic proportions and forms as Awan, but with many cursive, energetic, and playful details. And since modern monoline fonts are increasingly being used to set extended texts, more features were borrowed from Naskh calligraphy to expand the typeface’s use from headlines into text setting. When using the AwanZaman Arabic family, Awan (geometric Kufic forms) is the starting point. To add the sweeping, energetic personality of Zaman (calligraphic Naskh forms), simply activate an alternate character through the option of 20 stylistic sets available in any OpenType-savvy software. The two typefaces function as one file — the AwanZaman Arabic family — allowing users to combine features from both designs to transform the appearance of text from geometric and formal to playful and informal. The third phase of AwanZaman’s development introduced a companion Latin typeface designed by Juliet Shen to fulfil the persistent need in the Arabic fonts market for modern and geometric bilingual type families. Due to the Arabic’s monolinear strokes, AwanZaman Latin was destined to be a sans serif with a tall x-height, larger counters, and corresponding stem thickness to harmonise with the Arabic’s overall text colour and page presence. But it needed much more. One of AwanZaman’s chief assets is making the two languages look on a par when typeset side by side. Arabic and English readers will have a different sense of what that entails, but this type family defers to the Arabic — graceful and artistic with a good mix of straight stems and curved forms. Latin in general doesn’t aesthetically flow the way Arabic does, yet the tone of the Latin needed to mirror both the Arabic’s more squarish curves and formal personality of Awan and the undulating and more playful shapes of Zaman without looking outlandish. That need was met by creating some novel Latin characters, which are accessed through four stylistic sets the same way as AwanZaman Arabic. The alternates are not just clever in the way they look and how they echo the Arabic aesthetic, but also in harmonising the disparate languages and serving designers well when needing a balanced, bilingual text face with a warm and lively voice. AwanZaman is a clever, seven-weight powerhouse that makes extensive use of OpenType’s stylistic sets (20 in the Arabic and four in the Latin) so writers and designers can make the most of everything from a single glyph in display sizes down to dense text in paragraphs. As AwanZaman Arabic has no italic, neither does the Latin; contextual distinction normally handled by italics is achieved by exploiting the family’s seven weights. AwanZaman’s intricate OpenType programming supports Persian and Urdu, with features such as the returning tail of Barri Yeh treated properly. From its inception in geometry to its melding of two worlds with novel forms, AwanZaman is a personal labor by designers Dr Mamoun Sakkal and Juliet Shen, and embodies the TypeTogether ideals of serving the global community with innovative and stylish typeface solutions. The complete AwanZaman Arabic and Latin families, along with our entire catalogue, have been optimised for today’s varied screen uses.