Arabic Calligraphy: Learn Kufic Script

Overview

“I selected a quote by Gibran Khalil Gibran, my country’s most famous poet, to work with. It translates as:

The sea ebbs and floods, and the moon wanes and waxes, and time has summer and winter, but the Real doesn’t alter or pass away or change.

I’ll walk you through my drafts, explaining the steps I took to translate the sentence into a satisfactory layout. I’ll point out issues that arose and how I solved them. At this point we’re not working with rules, but making design choices so that the finished piece can serve the meaning of the sentence while at the same time filling the space the way it needs to. Working in the historical layout means the creative choices are limited, but this is an advantage: while we’re still learning the script, it allows us to focus on problem-solving without being overwhelmed by possibilities.”

In this video lesson Joumana Medlej addresses the topic: Selecting and Preparing the Text, which is part of the Domestika online course: Arabic Calligraphy: Learn Kufic Script. Explore the ancient Arabic script style of Kufic by learning to write a short text using traditional artistic practices.

Partial transcription of the video

“Joumana Medlej Selecting and Preparing the Text The first consideration when choosing a text is that it needs to have the potential to fit within the box. Remember that the text has to be justified. All the lines need to start on this side of the textbox, and they all need to touch the end of it as well. You can stretch it, you can squeeze it. There are limits to that. About fifteen words is kind of a safe estimate for this, depending on the length of the words. Also, we have to take into account that some letters cannot be stretched and some sentences have so few stretches that it's not us...”

This transcript is automatically generated, so it may contain mistakes.

Course summary for: Arabic Calligraphy: Learn Kufic Script

• Level: Beginner
• 99% positive reviews (109)
• 3847 students
• 5 units
• 17 lessons (2h 24m)
• 9 downloads

• Category

  Calligraphy & Typography

• Areas

  Calligraphy