Furthermore, Nasta’liq is largely written without diacritics, managing negative space either by defining it with an abrak (Persian for “tiny cloud”) or by slanting the baseline to allow letter combinations to stack and better fill the space. On the other hand, using diacritics is no panacea, as demonstrated by the countless inscriptions with awkward diacritic placement. When Naskh letters were adapted for mechanical typesetting they were stripped of their diacritics, but the design of the letters remained unchanged, violating the principle of Savad va Bayaz and unbalancing the negative space. Naskh, the calligraphic style from which most Arabic/Persian typefaces are derived, was created for writing long passages of the holy Qur’an, and its design incorporates diacritics, which not only avoid ambiguity when reciting the text, but also shape the negative space around the words. Thus far, digital emulation of all these parameters has proven impossible or impractical, and although some digital Nasta’liq systems are available today, none even comes close to fully emulating the complex balance of handwritten script.Īnother important feature of Persian calligraphy related to the management of negative space is the use of diacritics. Another important principle, Savad va Bayaz (“white and black”), governs how letters and letter combinations should be shaped to produce an even pattern throughout the text it deals with the proportions of letters and the relationship between the black space of the letters and the white space of the counters. This is similar to letter spacing and kerning in roman scripts, but much more complex because the heights of individual connections change dynamically to harmonise the negative space around the letter fusions. For example, the principle of Khalvat va Jalvat (Persian for “expansion and contraction”) governs the position of individual letter combinations to distribute the negative space throughout the lines so every word has the same grey. It includes principles that govern not only how letters and words combine, but how negative space is managed to produce consistent text lines and consistent text colour throughout those lines. The beauty of Persian calligraphy lies in a complex system that developed over centuries, finally culminating in the Nasta’liq style. This example perfectly demonstrates the gap between traditional Persian handwriting and conventional Persian text typefaces. The word shapes are noisy, the negative spaces between and within letters are unbalanced, and the text has an inconsistent pattern. Typical layout of a Farsi book set with an early Arabic typeface from the 1970s.
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