You open the company presentation and the English heading is set in a clean modern typeface. Next to it, the Arabic heading is in a different font that looks smaller and heavier, as if someone else designed it. Or the Arabic version of the website falls back to a system font because the typeface the designer picked never supported Arabic in the first place. These are some of the most common problems in bilingual brands across the region.
Choosing both fonts together at the start solves most of them.
How do you choose an Arabic font that matches your English font?
Look for two fonts with a similar personality: stroke thickness, how open the letterforms are, and how geometric or soft they feel. The easiest route is a family whose Arabic and Latin versions were designed together, such as IBM Plex Sans Arabic with IBM Plex Sans, or the Arabic and Latin members of the Noto family.
If you pick two separate fonts, type the same sentence in Arabic and English at the same weight and put them side by side. Step back and compare how dark each line looks. If one is clearly darker or more decorative, the pair does not work, however good each font looks on its own.
Test the pair on real text from your company: a quotation heading, a paragraph from the website, a long product name and a price table. The short sample sentence that font sites display hides many of the problems that show up in longer text.
Pay attention to the style category as well. Simple modern Arabic fonts are closer in character to Latin sans serif fonts, and fonts based on Naskh calligraphy sit closer to serif fonts. Mixing the two is possible, but it takes an experienced eye.
Why does Arabic text look smaller than English at the same font size?
The nominal font size does not tell you the visible size. Arabic letters have different ascenders and descenders from Latin letters, so Arabic text usually looks smaller at the same point size.
These are practical rules we apply on most projects:
- Set the Arabic size so it looks equal to the English, even if the numbers differ.
- Give Arabic text more line height, because dots, diacritics and descending letters need room.
- Never add letter spacing to Arabic. The letters connect, and spacing breaks the joins.
- Avoid italics in Arabic. Use weight or color for emphasis instead.
- Check that the font supports every character you need, including diacritics (tashkeel) if your copy uses them.
How many font weights do you need?
Two or three weights cover most companies: regular for body text, medium or bold for headings, and maybe a light weight for limited uses. Extra weights do not improve the design, and they make the website heavier.
Before you sign off, confirm that the Arabic font comes in the same weights you use from the English one. Many Latin fonts ship with nine weights while the Arabic version has only two, and you find out the day you need a bold Arabic heading.
What should you know about font licensing?
A font is software with a license, and using it in print may be licensed differently from using it on a website or in an app. Some commercial fonts sell separate licenses for desktop, web and apps, and some cap the number of devices or monthly page views.
Most Google Fonts are released under an open license that allows commercial use, and the library includes a good number of Arabic fonts. That makes it a practical choice for many companies. A commercial font can make you more distinctive, provided you buy a license that covers all your uses and that it is registered to your company, not to the designer.
Ask your designer to include the font files or download links, plus the license details, in the handover. A font used in your logo and templates that you hold no license for is a problem you tend to discover late.
What about fonts on your website and app?
A web font is a file the browser has to download, and Arabic font files are larger because Arabic has many more letter shapes. Each extra weight is another file that slows the page, especially on a phone.
- Pick the weightsOnly the ones you actually use
- WOFF2 formatSmaller files for the web
- Subset the charactersLoad Arabic and Latin only when needed
- A matching fallback fontText shows right away while the font loads
Test the font on a real phone at a small text size, with numbers, dates and prices. Some fonts that look great in headings become tiring in a long paragraph on a small screen. For more on site speed, read why your website is slow on mobile.
Should you use Western or Eastern Arabic numerals?
Western numerals (123) and the Eastern Arabic numerals used across the Levant and the Gulf are both common in the region, and the choice depends on your audience and the kind of documents you produce. Pick one and lock it into your templates.
Mixing the two in the same document confuses readers, especially in prices and tables. Also check that your chosen font draws its numerals well, because they appear on invoices and quotations far more than you would expect.
All of these rules belong in your brand guidelines so that anyone designing in your name applies them. We choose fonts and test them in both languages, on paper and on screen, as part of our branding and design service. Send us a presentation or a page from your website in both languages and we will tell you where the two fonts clash.
Questions our partners ask
Are the Arabic fonts on Google Fonts free for commercial use?
Most of them are published under an open license that allows commercial use in print and on websites. Read the license of each font before you commit, especially if you plan to modify the font or sell it as part of a product.
Can I use the same font for the logo and for body text?
You can, but logos are usually drawn as custom or modified lettering, while the body font is chosen for readability. What matters is that the two look like they belong to the same visual family.
Should my brand use Western (123) or Eastern Arabic numerals?
It depends on your market and the type of documents you produce. Pick one, fix it in your brand guidelines and templates, and make sure the font you chose supports it well.
Written by the Visual Innovate team, the people who build, host and follow up systems, websites and apps for our clients in Jordan, Saudi Arabia, Oman and Egypt.
