Tabrizi Jali typeface: reviving history through letterforms

Izadpanah, B. ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-4455-4350 (2023) Tabrizi Jali typeface: reviving history through letterforms. [Project]

Abstract/Summary

Tabrizi Jali is a type revival in the Persian Naskh style based on the 19th-century metal type produced by Mirza Zayn-ol-Abedin Tabrizi in Tehran. In 1827, this type was used to publish the earliest known Qur’an printed with movable type in a Muslim country. One of the significant outputs of working on historical revivals and research-informed typeface designs like Tabrizi Jali is reintroducing highly evolved and elaborated textual conventions in various manuscript traditions. The Naskh types of Mirza Zayn-ol-Abedin are the benchmark of Persian Naskh and Iranian typography. Tabrizi Jali is an attempt to reintroduce a genre-defining model which can be used as a reference for researchers, designers and students, similar to the Roman types of master type-makers such as Nicolas Jenson, Claude Garamond or John Baskerville, which play such roles in Latin typography.