Kristyan Sarkis in Conversation With Huda Smitshuijzen AbiFarès

Khatt Chronicles: Stories on Design from the Arab World

Huda Smitshuijzen AbiFarès interviews Lebanese type designer Kristyan Sarkis and founder of TPTQ Arabic font foundry in Amsterdam. Kristyan shares his education and journey into becoming a type designer. He states: "I learned how to connect with my own cultural design heritage at the Type and Media masters program, at the Royal Academy of art in The Hague." Kristyan discusses at length his typeface design approach and his research-based and culturally-immersive pedagogical practice. The talk also delves into his personal contemporary lettering work which affords him a break from the systematic discipline of type design.

The talk unpacks some Arabic type design notions: the difference between writing and calligraphy; the connection of handwriting to digital type design; and the differences between Arabic calligraphy, lettering and type design. Kristyan advocates for new style classifications for digital typefaces that are dissociated from the established calligraphic conventions. He stresses the importance of researching historical developments while creating fonts that are culturally relevant yet express their respective contemporary era.

https://tptq-arabic.com/

http://arabictypedesign.com/