Arsenica Arabic
Zetafonts · Francesco Canovaro, Murad Alshawareb · 2026
A Naskh-rooted Arabic type system by Francesco Canovaro and Murad Alshawareb, designed to pair with the Latin Arsenica superfamily across brand and editorial work.
About
Built on a traditional Naskh skeleton but executed with sharp, triangular joins and high contrast drawn from a translation model rather than classical calligraphy, the family splits into two subfamilies: Arsenica Arabic Antiqua, which rounds terminals for warmth in editorial and branding contexts, and the main family, which pushes contrast to its sharpest for poster and logo use. Seven weights run across both subfamilies, with a variable font included in the full package covering weight and optical size axes. The design was developed with guidance from Nadine Chahine and completes a multilingual system alongside the Latin, Greek and Cyrillic Arsenica families.
Classification
A Naskh-rooted Arabic typeface with Old Style contrast logic, drawing on translation-model stroke contrast with sharp, acute joins rather than the soft terminals of classical digitised Naskh revivals. The Latin component follows the same expansion-based drawing philosophy as the broader Arsenica superfamily.