Supporting foundries are essential to GRANSHAN's daily operations. This partner plays a crucial role in our success, and we are grateful for their support. Explore this page to learn more about the foundry that helps make our work possible.
29LT
29Letters Type Foundry S.L. [ aka 29LT ] is dedicated to creating and publishing multiscript fonts. Its leading edge in Arabic and Latin typography arises from its collaborative team of professional Arab and European type designers crafting high-quality typefaces. Besides publishing unique retail fonts, 29LT frequently joins forces with renowned international branding and design agencies to deliver high-end typographic solutions, such as custom fonts and logotypes.
With a typographic work incorporating multiple scripts, 29LT is committed to exploring the diversity and potential of Arabic typography and tapping into other world scripts.
The foundry is founded and run by Pascal Zoghbi.
Design Space AlUla / Saudi Arabia
Located in the AlJadidah Arts District, it is a hub for design professionals, students, and enthusiasts, aiming to promote and preserve AlUla’s cultural legacy.
Pascal Zoghbi designed the logo as part of a comprehensive visual identity created by Clara Sancho Studio. Additionally, a customized version of 29LT Okaso was created for the wordmark in the logo and the visual identity as a whole.
Bahrain Pavilion Expo2020 Dubai / United Arab Emirates
The Pavilion of the Kingdom of Bahrain at Expo2020 Dubai explored density as a catalyst for opportunity through an intricate exploration of the dense natural and urban compositions of the island.
29LT Zawi, a sharp and corporate counterpart of 29LT Baseet, was primarily intended to serve as the typographic visual element in the design concept. The visual identity was a collaborative effort between Clara Sancho and Pascal Zoghbi.
Expo2020 Dubai / United Arab Emirates
The Expo bespoke bilingual Arabic and English typeface was a collaboration between Pascal Zoghbi and Dino dos Santos. A simplified Neo-Naskh Arabic pairs a contemporary sans-serif Latin echoing the theme of the Expo: “Connecting Minds, Creating the Future.”
A clear and open design approach infuses the fonts with a vibrant and open ambiance, which resonates exceptionally well with the countless cultural and business visitors.
Lanvin Saudi Arabia Store / Saudi Arabia
The challenge of creating cohesive bi-scriptual wordmarks for brands in the Arab world, with both Arabic and Western names, requires careful consideration. The redesign of the Lanvin logotype in both Latin and Arabic scripts illustrates this complexity.
Pascal Zoghbi explored Thuluth and Eastern Kufic calligraphic styles to harmonize with the new Latin typography, ensuring a professional and visually coherent result.
What are the challenges and opportunities in designing multiscript fonts? How do you see multi-script typography developing and being used now and in the next decade?
As part of the 29LT philosophy, native and professional type designers know best how to design and test a set of languages for a script that they comprehend. All of the multi-script 29LT fonts are designed by a team of native type designers.
Take 29LT Zarid Sans as an example. The Arabic script is designed by Pascal Zoghbi from Lebanon, the Latin script by Jan Fromm from Germany, the Cyrillic and Greek scripts by Krista Radoeva from Bulgaria, the Devanagari script by Kimya Gandhi from India, and the Hanzi (Chinese) design proposal by MalikaType from China.
It takes an experienced and dedicated team to work together and coordinate the design of a certain type style across all scripts and to match the styles accordingly. As native speakers and writers of at least one of the scripts/languages they are designing, they are all professional type designers with higher education degrees in type design and have wide experience in the type design practice.
29LT will maintain the focus of the bi-script Arabic and Latin areas of expertise, while expanding its team of collaborators and designers to cover additional world scripts. We hope that the wording ‘non-Latin’ soon stops being used to categorize all world scripts that are not Latin; it is best to name each script by its name and categorize it based on its own linguistic and geographical aspects.
Working with such a high level of experts is costly and makes it challenging to finance a multi-script project if it is a sell-initiate foundry project, not a bespoke one. Since the world's cultures are growing closer and closer together, and the global village we live in needs high-level multi-script fonts for communication, we strongly believe that this effort will be rewarded in the future.
About
29Letters Type Foundry S.L. [ aka 29LT ] is a business duly organized and existing under the laws of Spain and the European Union. It is located at 34 Fernando Poo Sreet, Ground Floor, 28045 Madrid, Spain, with Tax number ESB67990366.
The foundry is founded and run by Pascal Zoghbi.
When setting up to establish 29LT in 2013, Lebanese designer and educator Pascal Zoghbi aspired to explore the diversity and potential of the Arabic script. Zoghbi envisioned 29LT with a cross-cultural approach. Having evolved, studied and worked in a multicultural and largely bilingual environment, he embraced multilingualism. Coming into contact with more than one language in his everyday life, he has developed an exceptional ability to think global and to reflect the various technical, conventional, and cultural writing systems into his work. Accordingly, he has excelled in creating innovative, high-quality contemporary multiscript type families, each of which is unique in its design approach and responds to regional and international market needs. Staying true to his culture, he worked on turning traditional Arabic script into contemporary type. Always on the lookout for new ideas and harmony between scripts, he explores various tools and techniques and regularly partners with a team of professional designers specialized in specific scripts to create multiscript typography.
Not only is he heavily involved in the practice of Arabic type design and typography, but he has also contributed to the field as an educator. Between 2007 and 2017, he taught at various design schools in Lebanon (American University of Beirut, Lebanese American University, and Notre Dame University) and in the UAE (American University of Sharjah). Besides lecturing at universities, he takes part in a range of design events worldwide and provides trainings and workshops on Arabic typography at universities, conferences, and agencies.
Zoghbi has gained an international reputation for his work and has received throughout his professional career prestigious design awards and honors, such as TDC Typographic Excellence, Granshan, AIGA, and was nominated to Jameel Prize 3. His work encompasses an outstanding collection of contemporary Arabic and multilingual typefaces. He also co-authored and edited the “Arabic Graffiti” book published in 2010.
Zoghbi started his academic journey at Notre Dame University in Lebanon where he grew interest in Arabic typography. He further developed his type design skills at the Royal Academy of Art (KABK), the Netherlands, where he obtained in 2006 a Master of Design in Type & Media.
In 2018, he relocated to Madrid where he is currently based. Since then, his interest in a vast number of Spanish historical and cultural topics, especially those that showcase the merging of Arabic and Spanish cultures, grew keener. 29LT expanded accordingly, shifting from supporting only Arabic and Latin scripts to a global multiscript approach tapping into other world scripts.
