The International Macintosh Users Group presents:

Nastaliq Style through OpenType

Group: International Macintosh Users Group (IMUG)
(A Forum for Multilingual / Multiscript Computing)
Date: August 17, 2006, 7-9 p.m.
Speaker: Kamal Mansour (Monotype Imaging)
Topic: Nastaliq Style through OpenType
Location: Apple Computer, Apple Campus, 1 Infinite Loop, Cupertino
Take Saratoga/Sunnyvale exit off 280, turn South into
Cupertino, turn left onto Mariani Avenue, left into
Infinite Loop. Meeting is held in the Singapore Room.

Please arrive by 7:10, as the door is not monitored
after this time.

Admission: $4; free for IMUG members
Contact: Roger Sherman, (650) 859-5981
roger [dot] sherman [at] sri [dot] com
Website: http://www.imug.org <http://www.imug.org>

Noori Nastaliq is a calligraphic Arabic-script typeface originally
devised for use on a Monotype image-setter in the 1970s. Once this
proprietary equipment became obsolete, Noori Nastaliq could not be
readily implemented for many years with then-current technology of
digital fonts. With the advent and maturation of OpenType technology,
Noori Nastaliq is once again alive. In spite of the many graphic
complexities of Nastaliq style such as its oblique alignment to the
baseline and its midair cursive connections, OpenType proved sufficient for the
task, yielding results that far surpassed the capabilities of the original
product.

Nastaliq is a complex calligraphic style used primarily as a display
style in many countries, but as the preferred, everyday text style in
Pakistan. When looking at a page written in Nastaliq, one has the
impression of seeing words suspended from the ceiling by an invisible
thread. It has always been a challenge to duplicate the calligraphic
intricacies of Nastaliq through mechanized type. The advent of photo-
and digital typesetting made it possible to consider a fresh
implementation. In the 1970s, Monotype commissioned Pakistani
calligrapher Mirza Jamil to create a large collection of Urdu words in
Nastaliq style for use on a computer-controlled image-setter. The
resulting typeface was called Noori Nastaliq, and is used to this day by the
Jang Newspaper in Pakistan. In the early systems, as long as the typed text
matched one of the stored word patterns, the imagesetter was capable of
producing authentic-looking Nastaliq text. Whenever there was no match, a
calligrapher would have to make repairs manually. Such an approach was tolerable
in settings where many calligraphers were employed, but could no longer be
contemplated today for most environments.

Through the 1990s, Noori Nastaliq could only be supported within the
confines of specialized proprietary word processors since the
then-available technology for digital fonts did not offer the necessary
capabilities. In its current OpenType implementation, Noori Nastaliq style is
produced through a judicious mix of ligature-based techniques along with
contextually controlled forms. While the use of ligatures ensures faithful
reproduction of the original design, the use of contextually based glyph shapes
guarantees full coverage for any potential sequence of characters in many
different languages.

An early multilingual education served to stimulate Kamal's interest in
languages, alphabets, and typography. His studies have spanned Computer Science,
Linguistics, and Product Design. At Monotype, his work has focused on OpenType
implementations for various scripts including Arabic, Greek, Latin, Hebrew,
Thai, and Lao.

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