Designer Golnar Kat Rahmani gives us a fascinating insight into Arabic and Persian typography in her workshop Type & Politics.
Political instability, religious conflicts, and wars in the Middle East have shaped how Arabic script is perceived in the West, often appearing foreign, exotic, or even threatening. In this workshop, we learn to understand the fundamental principles of Arabic script.
We design the phrase “Woman, Life, Freedom”—the slogan of the feminist movement in Iran—and print our designs using a Risograph. Inspired by Golnar’s activism, we want to use our typographic studies, which are displayed at the university, to help free Arabic script from its negative associations within Western culture.