Sakkal Design

Sakkal Design type foundry is a father-daughter studio based in Bothell, Washington. It is the premier foundry producing Arabic typefaces in North America, and one of a select few around the world. With more than 25 years of experience and three awards of excellence from the Type Director’s Club in New York, Sakkal Design’s innovative and cutting edge designs emphasize aesthetic beauty, responsive functionality, and technical prowess. The use of their typefaces ranges widely and can be seen in such applications as Microsoft Windows core fonts, opening titles of Arabic TV programs and series, Arabic newspapers, publications and book covers, and the signage of the tallest building in the world, Burj Khalifa tower in Dubai. They have worked with companies large (including Adobe, Bitstream, Linotype, Microsoft, and National Geographic) and small, and were commissioned to design several custom Arabic fonts for various OEM applications. Released Arabic typefaces include Arabic Typesetting, Awan, Bitstream Mobile Font, Burj Dubai Shilia, Bustan, Lablab, Microsoft Uighur, Sakkal Majalla, Sakkal Maya, Sakkal Seta, and Shilia. On the “father” half of the foundry, Dr. Mamoun Sakkal established Sakkal Design in 1982 and has focused on Arabic typography and calligraphy since the 1990s. He is a well-known calligrapher and type designer with numerous awards to his credit. On the “daughter” half of the foundry, Aida Sakkal specializes in all things technical and she is particularly interested in programming the artistic tendencies of beautifully hand written calligraphy. With a B.S. degree in Computer Science from the University of Washington, her other primary interest is in developing tools to aid and automate the font creation process. Aida has been working with OpenType since 2001, and has played a role in the growth of OpenType and its application to Arabic fonts.