2016/09/6
Qandus, the result of the Typographic Matchmaking in the Maghreb Project (TMM3)
The ‘Typographic Matchmaking in the Maghrib’ consists in the 3rd edition of the multi-script typographic research project of the Khatt Foundation. The goals of the Typographic Matchmaking projects are to nurture cultural dialogue and help develop indigenous design skills. In this edition, a group of European (Dutch, Spanish, French) and Arab (Lebanese, Moroccan, Tunisian) designers researched and developed tri-script font families that combine Arabic (in the Maghribi Style), Tifinagh and Latin scripts harmoniously. Both the Maghribi and the Tifinagh scripts have not been fully explored in contemporary digital fonts, though they harbor a wealth of aesthetic variety and expressive potential.
Qandus Original is one of the three tri-script type families of the TMM3 project. This team was composed by Kristyan Sarkis (for the Arabic), Laura Meseguer (for the Latin) and Juan Luis Blanco (for the Tifinagh).
Qandus Original shown in the styles: Regular, Medium and Dark
The design of Qandus is inspired by the Maghribi style manuscripts by Shaykh Muhammad b. al-Qasim al-Qandusi, originally from Algeria, migrated to Fez, Morocco in 1828. Qandus Original consists of the design of three atypical weights related in a conceptual way: Regular, Medium and Dark—from written to drawn—as a mixture of solid and fluid estructure.
In his work al-Qandusi offered a total new world of forms and textures, a goal that we also tried to achieve when designing the three scripts to be able to work harmoniously. At the moment the Qandus Type System is composed by three fonts, but the system will be expanded till nine fonts. Stay tuned!
A sample of Qandus Original Dark in the three scripts: Arabic, Latin and Tifinagh
