Dabir
Perso-Arabic Calligraphic type family
Shekasteh-Nastaʿliq (Šekasta-nastaʿlīq) script originated from Nastaʿliq script in the early 17th century in Iran. ‘Shekesateh’ literally means Broken in Persian and as a Persian calligraphic style, it refers to the specific style of writing in which words are written in a more cursive and informal manner than the original form. Because of this characteristic —based on two remarkable examples of hands in Shekasteh style: Shekasteh-Taʿliq and Shekasteh-Nastaʿliq— the geometry of letters becomes more sophisticated than the script that Shekasteh is derived from. Besides, Shekasteh-Nastaʿliq shares some similarities with Taʿliq (Invented in the mid-13th century), especially with regard to the application.
In the royal court of Iran, the official secretaries who were experts in literature and calligraphy were called ‘Dabir’. They were usually ranked by using titles such as, ‘Dabir-e Khaghan’ or ‘Dabir-ol-Mamalek’ and were assigned to write the royal decrees.
The design of the present typeface was initiated in January 2019, with the intention to develop a powerful tool for typesetting literary and educational texts and other applications. Considering these factors, this typeface was appropriately called ‘Dabir’.
Now, after two years, I redesigned Dabir and added two other weights, namely ‘Mashq’ and ‘Jadoo’.
The design of two other weights started with designing the thicker weight called ‘Mashq’. Mashq (Mašq, lit. “practice”) is the name of a calligraphy pen in Persian calligraphy in which nib width is around 5-6 millimeters, appropriate for writing titles or short sentences. In Mashq weight, I attempted to represent the feeling of the proportion of letters in Mashq pen.
After designing this weight I generated the intermediate weight, namely ‘Jadoo’, between two other weights. Jadoo (Jādoo, lit. “magic”) is also the name of a calligraphy pen in which the width of the nib is around 3-4 millimeters.
‘Dabir’ is a calligraphic type family and is appropriate for calligraphic compositions, headlines, and even longer texts. It supports Persian, Arabic, and Urdu and is a powerful tool for designers and calligraphy enthusiasts.
