Écrire pour recommander la libération d’esprit, la purification de l’âme, on est qui pour mettre la pression sur pays ? Ahh oui a cause d’une rumeur ? On est qui pour croire ou pas ce que tout le monde nous disent, un récit nocturne alourdit par des stupidités : « Zaba est ici, non non non il est là-bas, au armes il faut le pourchasser… » Putin mais on se basant sur quoi ? Une simple rumeur et si tu ne le fait pas « tu n’es pas un vrais tunisien », bah voyons –donc t’est qui toi pour me juger ou juger mon patriotisme, pose toi la question je t’ignore car tu es peut-être stupide ? Je ne t’écoute pas parce que tu n’a pas de preuves palpable qui tiennent la route, je me fou de ce que tu dis car je n’aime pas l’hypocrisie.

Faire une pression sur un pays, non mais avez-vous perdus la tête et pas n’importe quel pays la France, le Canada et pour finir les États-Unis, bah oui pourquoi pas c’est notre révolution, avez-vous oublié combien de temps on a passé à demander la libération de Palestine, avez-vous oublié combien de temps on-y a passé.

La seule solution qui nous reste et de se réorganiser, choses qui me fait très peur, mais si on sera capable un jour, nos agents secrets seront fort et capable de retracer ce chien et de l’emmener devant la cour Tunisienne pour être juger.

Vive la Tunisie Libre

A beautiful numeral font released by Andy Mangold under a Creative Commons license. The font can be useful in various settings, for instance for packaging design or logo deign. The .EPS file is available for free download. The font is free to use as long as the credit is given.

Lato (open-source sans serif)
Lato is a san-serif typeface family. The semi-rounded details of the letters give Lato a warm feel, while the strong structure provides stability and seriousness. Lato consists of five weights (plus corresponding italics), including a beautiful hairline style. The first release includes only the Western character set. Designed by Lukasz Dziedzic.

Crimson Text
“Crimson Text is a font family for book production in the tradition of beautiful old-style typefaces. There are a lot of great free fonts around, but one kind is missing: those Garamond-inspired types with all the little niceties such as old-style figures, small caps, fleurons, math characters and the like. In fact, a lot of time is spent developing free knock-offs of ugly ‘standards’ like Times and Helvetica. Crimson Text is inspired by the fantastic work of people like Jan Tschichold, Robert Slimbach and Jonathan Hoefler. We hope that the free type community will one day be able to enjoy Crimson Text as a beautiful workhorse.”

Espinosa Nova: Regular (registration is required)
Espinosa Nova is a revival of the types used by Antonio de Espinosa, the most important Mexican printer of the 16th century and quite probably the first punch cutter anywhere on the American continent (1551). All of the fonts intended for setting text include small caps, five sets of figures (old-style and lining, both proportional and tabular, plus tabular small caps), many “f” and long “s” ligatures and a capital sharp “S” (U+1E9E). Designed by Cristóbal Henestrosa.

Color Lines
This decorative font can be used for a variety of products, such as posters, packaging and label design. Original and unique. Designed by Anton Gridz, and available in AI format.

Baurete (free download)
A playful, intriguing typeface that could work for designs without rigid alignment or symmetrically positioned elements. Baurete is free to use for personal and commercial projects. If you want to use it, please contact the designers at [we {at} welab {dot} info]. You can download it for free.

Neuton Font
Neuton is a clean Times-Roman–like typeface by Brian Zick. In structure, it is a transitional type with Dutch inspiration. The x-height is high and the color dark, and it is economical in ascenders, descenders and width. Also available in the Google Font Directory.

Melbourne (personal use only)
Melbourne is a sans-serif with a strong modern presence. The designer’s intention was to create a calm space-saving typeface. The glyphs have rounded corners and relatively large tracking, which makes it a good fit for dictionaries, indexes, catalogues and so on. When used at a large size, Melbourne can be used as a display or headline font. The typeface is released as a draft, and suggestions for improvements are appreciated. Designed by Marco Müller.

ROKE1984
A free display font based on geometric forms and mathematical symbols, this one includes accents and numerals. An interesting option for technical designs that call for a distinctive yet slightly challenging appearance. Designed by Wete. Available in OpenType format.

Classic Round: medium and italic (registration required)
This typeface was designed for text and display use. In small text sizes, the typeface looks clean, inviting and legible. When used in big display sizes, it looks playful and interesting. Designed by Ben Blom.

Free Font FR Hopper: regular and italic (registration required)
FR Hopper is a sans based on geometric forms but still retaining a friendly personality. It is intended for mid-length texts, captions, titles and almost any other occasional use: posters, flyers and even websites. The typeface comes with 7 weights, 12 styles with 836 glyphs, and many advanced OT features such as small caps, discretionary ligatures, alternate characters, fractions, arrows and ornaments.

Darth Vador Free Font
An original geometric font for the Darth Vador theme, designed by Juart Little from France.

League Script #1
“League Script #1 is a modern coquettish script font that sits somewhere between your high-school girlfriend’s love notes and handwritten letters from the ’20s. It includes ligatures and will serve as the framework for future script designs.” Designed by Haley Fiege and available in OpenType format.

Four Free Type
Free original and playful OpenType fonts available in two font weights, regular and italic. Supported languages are English and Russian only. Designed by Alexey Frolov.

Musa Ornata
This typeface, with its cheerful characters, could be a good fit for event announcements, grocery stores and public transport signage. To activate the alternative case, check the “Character Palette” in the OpenType options toolbar in your application. The download link is available at the bottom of the release post (above link). Designed by Carvente Dice.

Skyhook Mono: regular
This family is a carefully handcrafted monospaced typeface family that is modern, sturdy and minimalist, yet distinctive enough for refined and classy uses. The regular weight is available as a free download. The free weight may not be used in political or religious works.

Phoenica Std (personal use only, registration is required)
Phoenica offers an alternative to contemporary humanist sans serifs. It is a flexible family suitable for editorials and corporate branding. Phoenica comes in a big variety of weights, each available in both roman and italic. The regular width is available as a free download and for personal projects.

Indento: bold (registration required)
“Indento is a multi-purpose modern geometric slab serif for headlines, posters and branding, but legible enough to be used for longer text. The straight and rounded corners, combined with the deep cuts and asymmetric serifs, give it a distinctive look while still keeping its legibility.” The bold weight is available as a free download in OpenType format. Designed by Mugur Mihai.

Free Font Adec
This typeface was inspired by Art Deco and Constructivism. It would fit posters, magazines and logos. The distinguishing feature of this font is the combination of decorative elements, such as textures and frames. Designed by Serge Shi.

Jean-Luc (Godard) (via I Love Typography)
“Atelier Carvalho Bernau Design released Jean-Luc, a typeface inspired by the title cards of films like ‘Deux ou trois choses que je sais d’elle,’ to celebrate Jean-Luc Godard’s birthday. The style of lettering is so interesting to us because it is such a clear renunciation of the ‘pretty’ classical title screens that were common in that time’s more conservative films. It has a more vernacular and brutishly low-brow character; this lettering comes from the street.” To embed the font using @font-face, a copyright code must be appended as a comment in the source code.

Arvo Font Family
This slab-serif typeface was created by Anton Koovit especially for the Google Font directory. It is optimized for Web use. The typeface is “monolinear-ish” but has a touch of contrast. For Windows users, the smaller 9, 12, 14 and 16 point sizes are hinted in Truetype format.

Thunderball
This heavy sans font with 178 characters could be useful for posters, postcards and similar designs. Released under a Creative Commons license.

Spatha Sans
A sans-serif font with organic playful shapes that set a friendly tone and are easy to read. The font could be a good fit for titles and maybe short text. Designed by Carvente Dice.

Spatha Serif
As a counterpart to the above-mentioned Spatha Sans, the glyphs in Spatha Serif have classic proportions and short serifs, which retain the playful and organic design. The font can also be embedded using @font-face, but a credit link is required. Designed by Carvente Dice.

My Fair Cody
An interesting playful typeface that makes a an impression with its personality and warmth. The tone is inviting and informal, and as such might not be the best fit for a corporate context. Designed by Darim Kim, and available in OpenType format. You may use the font in your private and commercial projects; but if you embed it using @font-face, then a credit link is required.

Matchbook
Matchbook is a simple and functional set of two typefaces, designed in serif and sans-serif versions. Each set includes all accented characters and works beautifully in larger sizes.

Mota Pixel
Mota Pixel is a simple pixel font with simple roots. The regular weight was created as a custom design for TypeShow and is now available for free to the public. Optimized for use in 20-pixel increments, it is a larger than normal pixel design. Still, the regular is rather thin and delicate, expressing some tendencies of an upright italic.

Further Resources

• Soma FontFriend
  FontFriend is a bookmarklet for typographically obsessed web designers. It enables rapid checking of fonts and font styles directly in the browser without editing code and refreshing pages, making it the ideal companion for creating CSS font stacks.
• Cure for the Common Webfont: Alternatives to Georgia
  For nearly fifteen years, if you wanted to set a paragraph of web text in a serif typeface, the only truly readable option was Georgia. But now we’re starting to see some valid alternatives for the king of screen serifs. What follows is a list of serif typefaces that have been tuned for the screen.
• How to Detect Font-Smoothing Using JavaScript
  Some fonts look bad on computer monitors without font-smoothing enabled in the operating system. The author of this article initially thought there wasn’t a way, but after seeing a promising but incomplete method of detecting font-smoothing, he spent a few days devising a way to do it.
• When Free Fonts Aren’t Free
  To ensure that you’re using “free” fonts as their creators intended, here are four things to look for when you’re scanning a EULA.
• iOS Fonts
  An overview of font families available on iOS devices such as iPhone and iPad.
• Free Typography
  A blog dedicated to free fonts.
• Caligraffiti
  A Brazilian blog that features freely available fonts.

Also, you may want to take a look at…

• Useful Dingbat Fonts
• Free Handwritten & Script Fonts
• Bold Free Script Fonts
• Free Calligraphy Fonts

Last Click

Adfont Calendar 2010
Here is Fontdeck’s typographic Advent calendar. Open the current day’s door and behind it you’ll find details of a great typeface, with a Web font offer available free for that day only. To use the offer, click “Purchase font licenses” in your Fontdeck settings before the day is over. Free subscription applies to websites with < 1 million page views per month.

That is to say, the Arabic language is the defining element of the ‘Arab world’. In total, the Arab world includes 25 countries and territories with a combined population of more than 358 million. This expanse stretches from the west coast of northern Africa (Mauritania, Western Sahara, Morocco, Algeria etc) across to Qatar, Oman and the United Arab Emirates in the Middle East.

The history of this expansive region is so deep that it is foolhardy to skim over how the past has influenced art and hence inspired, to a degree, modern web design. For example, Islam, the predominant religion of the Arab world, laid the ground stones for Islamic Art. One of the major reasons that Islamic art is rich in patterns and ‘arabesque’ repetition of forms such as geometrical floral designs is because it is feared by many Muslims that the depiction of the human form is idolatry and thereby a sin against Allah, forbidden in the Qur’an.

This denial of figurative art made way for powerful Arabic calligraphy and abstract depictions. Major outlets for artistic expression can be found in architecture, Arabic scripts, paintings and ceramics where intricate patterns adorn.

So Old Yet So Very Young

A wealth of history but web design still ‘immature’

With this wealth of calligraphic design for inspiration and the unity of the Arabic language defining the Arab world, one would assume that strong typographic design in the Arab web design world is abundant and advanced. But on the contrary. One sad reality about this rich script-based culture is that the web has failed to deliver enough support for Arabic fonts. That is until recent advances in Internet browser support. There are reportedly very few trusted and faithful fonts that allow for really beautiful typographical-based Arabic web designs. Tahoma is the number-one used font – it is available in Latin and Arabic.

Historical inspiration: Kufic is the oldest calligraphic form of the various Arabic scripts. (Picture: Wikipedia).

So what has then probably most profoundly inspired, but at the same time flummoxed, modern web design in the Arab world is the calligraphic Arabic writing system. Some of our interviewees below impressed the fact that typography for Arab web design is very much Latin-based and the design industry is still very immature. But they are optimistic the latest advances in browsing tools and standards will open the flood gates to more Arabic-based sites.

Quick Overview of Web Design in the Arab World?

When exploring the characteristics of Arabic web design one will find several aspects that make it unique. From the beautiful resources that inspire the designer to the scrolling calligraphy, web design in the Arab world very much has a brand of its own. Below are some interesting points concerning Arabic web design.

• While there are some websites that follow CSS standards, Flash is still “considered the default” option for many commercial web design companies.
• The web is still transitioning from being thought of as an ‘interactive TV’: “clients will project their expectations from the TV medium onto the web which is a process that destroys any hope of creating a usable website”.
• On most international websites Arabic is the secondary language, especially on company and conference websites.
• Professional Arab websites generally have the extra effort of offering bi-lingual publishing – English and Arabic.
• Freelancing in the Arab world is not generally considered a good way to make a living.
• While cost is a major concern for clients around the globe, Arabic web designers report focusing on usability and standards first while improving costs.
• One of the most important influences of Arabic designs is arabesque (repetition of forms and patterns) and the various kinds of calligraphy.
• The Arab world is made of 25 countries and territories, and has a combined population of more than 358 million people. Due to this large area and high numbers income varies greatly from one designer to another.
• There are reportedly very few design schools and design events.

The State Of Affairs

We have asked web designers from various locations within the Arab world a series of 10 questions.

We would like to thank the following for participating in our article:

• Fatma Alemadi of Fatma Studio, Qatar
• Fouad Badawy of Mo3aser, Egypt
• Jennifer Haddad of jennifer Studio, Lebanon
• Ahmed Chergaoui and Younes Qassimi of Synergie Media, Morocco
• Karim Tarek of Karim’s Portfolio, United Arab Emirates (UAE)
• Ghaida Zahran of Ghaida Studio, Saudi Arabia

Question 1

Could you please describe the life of a freelancer, developer and designer in Arab countries?

Fatma Alemadi, Qatar: Where I live freelancing is not a common thing. As a mother I’m very selective. I work on a few projects a year because of lack of time. I’ve discussed this with some other fellow designers and developers and I think chances in achieving a stable financial life as a freelancer in the Arab world are very weak. Web design is still a relatively new market, but I’m very optimistic that the market will boom and within few years this can be changed.

Madeforbeirut Design Agency

Fouad Badawy, Egypt: The way the society in the Arab countries view freelancing is still immature. If he/she works at home all day long on his/her computer, according to Arab societal thinking, this is not a job that can make a living. But because of the lack of suitable job opportunities for young people, many of them are starting to tend to work as a freelancer over the Internet.

Jennifer Haddad, Lebanon: From experience with freelancing life in Lebanon, it can’t be a reliable and only source of income for the designer or developer. It very much depends on the clients a freelancer has, connections and reputation. It’s a life with two faces: on the good side, you have freedom, since no one is being the manager more limiting the creativity, other than the client; and on the bad side, you have the instability.

Chergaoui and Qassimi, Morocco: Most of Moroccan web designers and developers are young (16-30 years old) and have less experience compared to Europe and North America. However, they’ve proved by many occasion that they’re eager to learn more.  In many cases, the client doesn’t measure the full potential of Internet. Therefore, the designer/developer deploys more efforts in educating the client rather than building the website. The process takes more time. Some Arab businesses tend to favour dealing with European agencies than trusting young local talents. That leaves us sometimes with the feeling that local designers/developers aren’t considered at their fair value.

Karim Tarek, UAE: I don’t really work as a full-time freelancer, but I think each of us have our own way of doing things and planning. Generally, I don’t think the life of a freelancer in the Arab countries should be different from any other freelancer in the world, but it is really hard to survive as a freelancer in the Middle East.

Ghaida Zahran, Saudi Arabia: I’m currently working fulltime with Rayat Brands and freelanced for only a short while after I graduated. It’s very difficult to get started as a freelancer here in Saudi Arabia. Clients prefer to work with established agencies rather than individual freelancers because it is assumed that if you were skilled enough you would be employed at an agency. Being a freelancer means you are the CEO, Creative Director, Client Servicing, Accountant, and Designer all in one, and requires masterful time management, and the requirements for a successful freelancer in Arab countries is the same as those in the US and Western Europe. The challenge is greater however, because of a lack of local support communities and resources and tools.

Question 2

Are there any regular meetings or events?

Fatma Alemadi, Qatar: Very few.

Fouad Badawy, Egypt: Big technical activities and events are very limited in the Arab region, but with the combination of the following: spread of information technology; growing numbers of companies working in this field; and, young people interested in learning more in this area, the situation improves gradually. Small activities and events organized by youth groups and small technical groups have begun to spread in recent years.

Ftpal.net

Jennifer Haddad, Lebanon: I’ve never heard of any official freelance meeting or events, so, as far as i know they don’t take place. But usually I and fellow designers sit and discuss design topics during our informal gatherings.

Chergaoui and Qassimi, Morocco: There is not yet a main event that brings together Arabic freelancers, developers and designers from Arab countries. We mostly meet in European/American Events. In Morocco, the only event that brings together Moroccan freelancers, developers and designers is the Maroc Blog Awards, an event that rewards the best social media actors from Morocco.

Karim Tarek, UAE: I heard about the “Submit Conference” -  it is for entrepreneurs and professionals involved in the Internet industry in the Middle East, focused on many aspects of Web applications, like technology, marketing, design and entrepreneurship. That is the only one I’ve heard of. Maybe there are others but I think they don’t promote and market it enough.

Ghaida Zahran, Saudi Arabia: There are no regular meetings for freelancers. Saudi Arabia is a very private society in that regard but the situation is getting better. A few years ago a local artist group in Jeddah, that met on deviantArt, formed the Jeddah Urban Artists and we had our first exhibit as a group in 2006. There is also a more active group, Riyadh Geeks, which meets regularly in Riyadh and is centered more around technology and software/web development than design.

Question 3

Are there any significant differences between Web designing in Arab countries and and ones in the US and Western Europe?

Fatma Alemadi, Qatar: I think the communities in the US and/or Europe are more active, but that doesn’t mean that we are left far behind. Also, with the Internet I don’t think we can separate designers according to their regions. A lot of Arab designers who I know are already working in international markets selling their products and work around the Internet .

Fouad Badawy, Egypt: There are no significant differences in web design techniques in the Arab region than anywhere else. Any difference is due only to the perceptions and demands of clients which vary from project to project and client to client.

Jennifer Haddad, Lebanon: Yes there is. The mentality of the clients and users in the US and western Europe is different. They are up to taking challenges and don’t set limitations to creating creative designs. This is a big problem in the Arab world especially KSA [Kingdom of Saudi Arabia] and sometimes in Dubai and Bahrain. The web design standards for such countries is totally different – they don’t care about the user experience nor if the website they are requesting is accessible to users or if the website reflects the line of work of the business. They have standards that in most cases don’t follow the worldwide trends in design because they are not well involved in the new innovations and evolution in web design.

29letters

Chergaoui and Qassimi, Morocco: Arabic is written from right to left. That means that many websites need to be redesigned to have an optimized website in terms of usability. Also the coding scheme is different, more design elements are added because Arabic characters are shorter and wider than Latin characters. This gives a different visual appearance to the website.

Karim Tarek, UAE: Yes I think so. Web design in Arab countries doesn’t have an identity yet unlike US and Europe.

Ghaida Zahran, Saudi Arabia: Web design in Arab countries is sorely behind that in the US and Western Europe. Extensive and inappropriate use of flash, nested tables for layout, and non-standard markup plague Arabic websites. Unfortunately the web is viewed as ‘interactive TV’ rather than a medium all of its own, and clients will project their expectations from the TV medium onto the web which is a process that destroys any hope of creating a usable website. Flash is considered the ‘default’ medium for commercial web design, and this leads to great user frustration because internet speeds in Arab countries are much slower than those abroad. For example, here in Saudi Arabia, the fastest speed you can subscribe to is 20 MB, and the cost is unjustifiably great. The trick is to manage client expectations and produce a website that will both “wow” the client and remain usable.

Question 4

Where do you get inspiration from?

Fatma Alemadi, Qatar: I get most of my inspiration from the design community. I read design blogs and visit css and design galleries. I’m also inspired by other forms of art like photography, decor and fashion. I love colors so anything with colors gets my attention.

Fouad Badawy, Egypt: The Arab region as an environment is very rich with wonderful places and resources that are good sources for inspiration. This is reflected in some designers’ works, however the main sources – considered as the easier – are the different images spread on the various photo sharing web sites, tracking CSS exhibits and keeping track of the work of other designers.

Jennifer Haddad, Lebanon: Everywhere, especially online. I always do research online – read design blogs, & books. Inspiration isn’t achieved from one place in particular for me. Sometimes I get inspired from looking at something that is in no way related to the project I’m working on.

Chergaoui and Qassimi, Morocco: Websites like behance.net, flickr.com, dribbble.com. Web design galleries such as inspirationti.me, unmatchedstyle.com, siteinspire.net. Design related blogs & portals : smashingmagazine.com,  aiga.org, alistapart.com, ilovetypography.com, thegridsystem.org. Arabic Calligraphy.

Karim Tarek, UAE: deviantart.com, smashingmagazine.com and searching google.

Wael Saad

Ghaida Zahran, Saudi Arabia: I get inspiration from showcase websites such as Best Web Gallery and CSSRemix. I enjoy browsing dribbble for general design inspiration. Video games are a great inspiration for me personally because they have such rich interfaces. I also seek inspiration away from the computer, elevators, television sets, and even non-electronic objects that we interact with daily.

Question 5

What’s the situation on the market? How much do designers earn?

Fatma Alemadi, Qatar: It really depends.We are talking about a lot of countries with a variety of incomes. According to where I live, some people in other Arab countries will think that I have high prices but for people in my country and countries around me my prices can be fair.

Zukhruf

Fouad Badawy, Egypt: When you talk about the Arab region, you are talking about 25 countries/territories that have various living standards. But let me talk about Egypt and the Arab Gulf states, where most of my work is concentrated – the cost of a medium-sized project starts from 400 dollars and up to 1000 dollars.

Jennifer Haddad, Lebanon: It differs based on the client, the project and the reputation of the designer. You have clients that are willing to pay a fair amount for the work of a freelancer and some who think that since they are working with a freelancer, the prices should be low – usually the price expectations are really low. The rate starts of at ~$300 for the price of a static homepage.

Chergaoui and Qassimi, Morocco: The market is still immature. The designers are mainly autodidact and young. We don’t have enough design schools in Morocco. Estimations vary a lot from a region to another; a designer charges by the day, and it’s approximately $200.

Karim Tarek, UAE: This is a tough question, I think each country is a different story. Currently I live and work in UAE. All the companies in the market are mostly foreign companies. It is really rare to find a pure Arabic company and if you were lucky to find one mostly they lack quality, I’m not sure of how much web designers earn but I know that building a website in UAE costs a lot. I would expect that a full-time web designer would get from 10.000 to 25.000 AED (United Arab Emirates Dirham) based on experience, talent, creativity, company and how lucky he/she is.

Ghaida Zahran, Saudi Arabia: Income varies greatly from one designer to another; but the average basic salary for a fresh graduate in Saudi Arabia for example is about 4,000 Saudi Riyals which is about 12,800 USD a year. The variation begins as experience increases and designers with a few years of experience under their belts can earn anywhere from 22,000 USD to 50,000 USD a year.

Question 6

How do you see the status quo of Web design in Arab countries?

Fatma Alemadi, Qatar: If the web design in the Arab world was a human, I would say we are in the “teenage” stage and hopefully this teenage boy/girl will grow up to be a smart and successful adult soon – God willing (as we say in Arabic).

Fouad Badawy, Egypt: Web design in the Arab region is still in its early stages and the Arab production over Internet is small compared to the number of Arabic sites and the number of users. But, with an increasing number of young designers who have creative ideas and have a desire to keep up with everything new in this area, it is improving well.

Colors Lab

Jennifer Haddad, Lebanon: It is evolving. Web design is totally different from they way it was when I started working three years ago. Clients are more open to the trends and breakthroughs in web design. They are more involved in the Internet world. Websites produced have a more professional international look but still you have a fair percentage of clients who still live in a nutshell and don’t like outside-the-box ideas. The good thing is that the percentage of these clients is decreasing each year, more and more.

Chergaoui and Qassimi, Morocco: More than 75% of Arab Internet users are under 35. They heavily use social platforms like Facebook and MSN and play a lot of online games. Arabic websites that have a large traffic focus a lot on content and tend to neglect the design part.

Karim Tarek, UAE: Web design in the Arab countries needs a lot of improvement, which in turn needs a lot of effort from individuals like web designers or web developers plus companies. Though, I don’t think in our countries people have the luxury of doing open source projects or writing high quality articles – every one is busy make a living. Life is hard here.

Ghaida Zahran, Saudi Arabia: Currently “advanced” web design is considered anything that is heavy on animation. Flash is the de facto medium for websites, however more clients are beginning to understand the drawbacks to relying heavily on Flash.

Question 7

Are there any patterns of usability or rules of thumb that are typical of Arabic design? Are the standards of Web design in Arab countries changing?

Fatma Alemadi, Qatar: People are so crazy about Discussion Boards. Sometimes I think that every kid in my neighborhood has his/her own board. When we first had the Internet years ago people knew the Internet as a place to have freedom of speech through boards, places to say things that they can’t say anywhere else due to regimes in some Arab countries. This is starting to change – but slowly. Also, because some technologies don’t support Arab language except in their later versions we are left behind unable to use this technology until Arabic is supported. And if you think that working with your site design for cross browsing is hard, try right to left design where browsers act strange sometimes and IE bugs are more and harder to solve.

Jennifer Haddad, Lebanon: Yes there are patterns of usability that are usually followed but these are not official standards. Unlike web design in English there are no international standards that all English websites somehow follow. Still, the Arabic language in web design is underestimated and not treated the way it’s supposed to be. It is becoming somehow a secondary website language when in reality it should be the primary language that should be treated initially while designing a website. Usually each country has it’s separate guidelines that should be followed, for example, Dubai Government has that. They have there own set of guidelines and rules that should be applied to all websites designed for the Government of Dubai.

Chergaoui and Qassimi, Morocco: Perhaps the most important thing to take into consideration is culture. Sometimes designs are rejected because they contain elements that may be considered as inappropriate or shameful. So rule number one: be aware of the cultural specificities of the region you’re designing for.

Karim Tarek, UAE: With respect to usability, there is no difference between an English design and Arabic design – same rules apply. The web standards in Arab countries should be the same like the international ones and I believe it is changing every day, but not every one follows the latest standards As an example you still find websites using tables to build the structure of the web page, so standards are the same but are we making use of it?

wajhy

Ghaida Zahran, Saudi Arabia: It would seem that a lot of the web design in Arab countries seems to be stuck in the 90s. This however is slowly changing as talented designers are beginning to observe usability principles and web standards more and also as the web is becoming more of a tool than the entertainment medium people assumed it was years ago.

Question 8

And how does all of this work? Is the situation currently good or difficult? Do most customers want to have English-speaking or Arabic-speaking sites?

Fatma Alemadi, Qatar: Most companies want to have two languages, Arabic and English, so in most cases you have to work twice with a lot of the design aspects. For blogs and more personal sites it’s mostly one language Arab or English.

Ahmed Zahran’s Portfolio

Fouad Badawy, Egypt: This depends on the type of client. Most companies and organizations request that they should have their site in both Arabic and English, and others are in English only. However the sites of individuals should often be in Arabic only and are directed mostly to the Arab user only.

Jennifer Haddad, Lebanon: Unfortunately the Arabic speaking sites are treated as a secondary language in most of the websites. The number of websites which cater first for the Arabic style are somehow rare. Arab countries have come far and evolved when it comes to website design and styles. Still, we need to grow a lot to become like the US and European countries.

Chergaoui and Qassimi, Morocco: The main projects in Arabic are currently government and institutional projects. Many Arab businesses appear to search more in English or French than in Arabic and prefer to have English-speaking or French-speaking sites. As the Arab world gets more and more connected to the web, I think more Arabic-speaking sites will be created.

Karim Tarek, UAE: In my opinion the situation is bad , Mostly clients ask for both, though top priority is for the English websites and some clients don’t even care to have an Arabic website – English will do.

Ghaida Zahran, Saudi Arabia: The situation is difficult and like any transition it is challenging but ultimately inevitable. People are beginning to look to the Internet for more than simply looking up a company’s brochure website, but they are starting to see its potential as a valuable tool as well. Thus more web applications such as Qaym and 3aish Jobs are being developed. English speaking websites seem to be the default request by clients as well, even though user demand is great for Arabic websites.

Question 9

How do Arab designers handle typography? Are any font embedding techniques widely used? Is the choice of available fonts big? How vivid is, in your opinion, typography in Arabic web design?

Fatma Alemadi, Qatar: There are a good number of Arab fonts, while still mainly three are widely used. The font most used by designers is Tahoma which looks lovely on windows and loses its lovely curvy look on Mac – still I prefer it for smaller text. Most CSS styling techniques are designed for English (Latin) letter so applying them to Arabic text can make the texts looks funny sometimes . Font embedding technique doesn’t work well with Arabic fonts so this is not used yet. Hopefully we can find a solution for this soon or maybe someone already came up with one and I don’t know

Jennifer Haddad, Lebanon: As an Arab designer i am usually afraid from the Arabic language and it’s a challenge to be able to design a website that looks good and user friendly in Arabic. But it’s a challenge I’m getting good at since the type of projects i work on are 90 % Arabic websites. The fonts used on the web for Arabic are unfortunately still limited to the default Ariel, Verdana, Tahoma and most of the time the font used is Tahoma because it is the most legible on the web. Arabic typography should start to take its rightful place in the web design world. It’s a nice language and it’s our main language in the Arab world. If we don’t treat the language as important and revive it no one else will.

Dubai Media Incorporated

Chergaoui and Qassimi, Morocco: Based on the sites we designed in Arabic, typography is often limited to the list of fonts already existing on the operating systems. It’s mainly due to the lack of typographic variety. A small example describing this : the number of Arabic font families existing in Linotype directory (http://www.linotype.com/en/51438/kategorien-arabisch.html), compared to the number of sans-serif font families (http://www.linotype.com/en/51431/kategorien-serifenlos.html) - 784 versus 40! Font embedding is not very popular. Solutions like Typekit doesn’t yet offer Arabic fonts. That being said, we think it’s just a matter of time before we’ll be able to deliver custom types in websites using these technologies.

Typography is progressing & there’s some high quality type designers, such as Nadine Chahine, who designed the Arabic versions of well known fonts (helveticaneue, frutiger, palatino, etc..)

Karim Tarek, UAE: As to my knowledge there is no font replacement technology like Cufon or sIFR which supports Arabic, so we just use system fonts which makes the Arabic web layouts much less pleasant than the English one. As for fonts, Arabic fonts are extremely expensive and free ones are hard to find.

Ghaida Zahran, Saudi Arabia: The state of Arabic typography on the web is dismal. This makes designing websites in Arabic a gamble, because you could never tell how the website will look on different users’ computers, the short-term solution for this is to use background images for text, which of course is a usability nightmare and many developers simply ignore the issue and hope for the best. There needs to be a standard set of Arabic typefaces that are available on every operating system, the equivalent to Georgia, Arial, etc. in English.

Question 10

What makes an outstanding design agency in Arab countries?

Fatma Alemadi, Qatar: Sometimes creativity and individuality … and mostly connections.

Arabic Rhymes

Fouad Badawy, Egypt: The appropriate prices or the low prices sometimes! Quality of work, quick response to customer requests as well as a Portfolio that contains good-level work. All these factors increase the success and spread of companies at least at the level of individual customers.

Jennifer Haddad, Lebanon: An agency that cares about quality not quantity. An agency that caters for user experience and stay up to date with the design trends and create its own trends. An agency that works on a variety of projects not just one specific type of project. An agency that has and gives good consultancy service to the client and somehow is able, through that, to influence the client in a good way. Finally, an agency that has the right project cycle and treats the project with care and gives it its rightful time to be finished.

Chergaoui and Qassimi, Morocco: Web designs in Arab countries are primarily intended for a particular culture or nation rather than the World Wide Web. Thus, local expertise is the key! The one who thinks big, works hard and overcomes regional challenges will surely succeed.

Karim Tarek, UAE: A team of passionate people who want to do their own thing instead of follow others and selling crap.

Ghaida Zahran, Saudi Arabia: I would say the same qualities that make any design agency outstanding; matching client expectations with user expectations by creating websites that are both usable and attractive.

Selection of Web Designs from the Arab World

MBC4

Maghribi Style design agency

Kharabeesh

EMKW

Altareekh

alrasekhoon

mbc3

Integrated Wood

Cocolicious

Twofour 54

Wissam Shawkat Studio

Bait Alherafieen

Makan House

Qas w Lasq

Mo3jam

ikbis

Patchi

kammelna

Zain

Shankaboot

Jordan Pioneers

Filaty

Madrasati

Pierre Katra

Media Plus

Sabeel Water

Atelier White

Hair Code World

Children’s Museum

Nahfat Ailetna

Aljazeera Children

Saudi Aramco World

Hyper Stage

Bonnon Coffee

Nina Kreidie Portfolio

Mawkoos

Beshoy Designs

Leather Export

Saad Creative

Fatafeat

Noor Islamic Bank

The Tamz

She7ata

NBK

Al Aali Complex

Khatif

MBC MAX

Qasr Alsarab

du

Adihex

Suhib 5

Jack Of Art

Blogs

• Fadi Ghandour
• Saudi Mac
• Dr Net
• Maya Zankoul
• Ayman Itani
• Musamem
• Entrepreneurs Law
• Ardroid
• Unlimit Tech
• Teedoz
• Yalla Startup

Events

• ArabNet Conference
• Submit Conference
• AmmanTT
• Riyadh Geeks
• Mubadiroon
• Beirut Twestival
• Dubai Tech Nights
• Saudi Geeks
• Maroc Blog Awards

SmashingMag.com

Géographie de la femme :

Flamenco is a genuine Spanish art, and to be more exact a genuine Southern Spanish art.

It exists in three forms: Cante, the song, Baile, the dance, and Guitarra, guitar playing.

Gipsies are very often named as the fathers of Flamenco, and at least it can be taken for certain that they played an important part in its creation. But also the popular songs and dances of Andalusia have influenced early Flamenco considerably.

Certainly there were other influences, too, as it is no surprise in a country that has been dominated by most diverse cultures and civilizations during its different historical epochs. There were the legendary Tartessos, and seven centuries of Muslim occupation hardly could have passed without leaving traces. All that, directly or indirectly, influenced Flamenco.

Flamenco History

Flamenco’s origins are a subject of much debate because it has only been documented for the past two hundred years, and the word Flamenco, which applies to the song, the dance and the guitar, did not come into use until the 18th century. Much of what we know before this time comes from stories that have been passed down through families, in a similar way to the flamenco song itself.

Although many of the details of the development of flamenco are lost in history, it is certain that it originated in Andalusia and that from the VIII to the XV centuries, when Spain was under Arab domination, their music and musical instruments were modified and adapted by Christians and Jews, and later by gipsies becoming a hybrid music separate from the musical forms which created it.

Between 1765 and 1860, the first Flamenco-schools were created in Cadiz, Jerez de la Frontera and Triana (Seville). In this epoch Flamenco dance started to have its firm position in the ballrooms. Early Flamenco seems to have been purely vocal, accompanied only by rhythmical clapping of hands, toque de palmas. It was left to dedicated composers, as Julián Arcas, to introduce guitar playing.

During its Golden Age (1869-1910) Flamenco was developed in the epoch’s numerous music cafés (cafés cantantes) to its definitive form. Also the more serious forms expressing deep feelings (cante jondo) date from then. Flamenco dance arrived to its climax, being the major attraction for the public of those cafés cantantes. Guitar players featuring the dancers increasingly gained a reputation.

The time from 1910 to 1955 Flamenco singing is marked by the ópera flamenca, with an easier kind of music such as fandangos and cantes de ida y vuelta. The latter clearly showed South American influences.

From 1915 on Flamenco shows were organized and performed all over the world. Anyhow, not everybody was enchanted with that development and intellectuals such as Falla organized 1922 in Granada a contest to promote “pure” cante jondo.

1955 started a sort of Flamenco Renaissance, with the great performer Antonio Mairena being its key figure. Outstanding dancers and soloists soon made their way out of the small tablaos, successors to the early cafés cantantes, to the great theatres and concert houses. It was now that guitar players acquired a great protagonism, and their playing arrived to maturity. The Flamenco guitar which formerly was just featuring the dancers arrived to be a soloist art form. Great virtuosos like Paco de Lucia played an essential roll in this development.

Massmedia have brought Flamenco to the world stage, but deeply it has always been and will remain an intimate kind of music. That’s why one of the most authentic Flamenco you may experience is in a juerga (flamenco party) with a small group of friends, at midnight somewhere in the South of Spain, when there is nothing around but the voice, the guitar and the body of a dancer moving in the moonlight.

Links to Flamenco Artist web sites

Guitar Players:

• Paco de Lucía
• Victor Monge “Serranito”
• Bruno Pedros
• Paco Peña
• Tomatito
• Vicente Amigo

Singers:

• El Cabrero
• Enrique Morente
• Estrella Morente
• Diego “El Cigala”

Dancers:

• Carmen Amaya
• Cristina Hoyos
• Antonio Gades
• Joaquín Cortés

Some Videos :

Flamenco Books and CD’S

Voilà, on en entend parler de partout, et la plupart des gens ont une vague idée sans pouvoir vraiment le définir. Alors, un première recherche sur un moteur de recherche vous donnera une piste sur Wikipedia, ici :
http://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Informatique_dans_les_nuages

Comme on peut le lire, c’est traduit par “informatique dans les nuages”.
(je trouve le nom en Français plutôt ridicule!)

En réalité, de qoi s’agit il ?

Jusqu’à aujourd’hui, l’informatique en entreprise était synonyme de salles blanches, d’administrateurs réseaux, de sécurité, pour assurer un service informatique nécessaire à la production et à la gestion de l’entreprise.

On peut parler d’informatique concrète, avec des serveurs, des connexions réseaux, du stockage, de la sauvegarde, du monitoring etc. Dans ce contexte, on a généralement besoin de machines en “spare” pour remplacer des pièces en cas de panne, de personnes d’astreinte, pour intervenir si ceci se produit la nuit ou le week end.

Cette gestion représente des couts d’infrastructure assez conséquents.

Les premières réductions de cout sont arrivées avec la virtualisation, permettant, la puissance des machines grandissant, de faire tourner plusieurs machines virtuelles sur une seule machine physique, réduisant ainsi les couts de maintenance.

De manière pragmatique, au lieu d’avoir 2 (ou plus) serveurs en production, avec leurs spares (machine pour pièce de remplacement) respectifs, on a donc plus qu’une seule machine à gérer physiquement, et a monitorer. Réduction sur les couts, la consommation electrique etc.

Bien sûr, il y a aussi des contraintes !! Un vieux proverbe dit “il ne faut pas mettre tous ses oeufs dans le même panier”, car s’il casse, on perd tout. C’est pourquoi la virtualisation nécessite des machines truffées de redondance (Raid, alimentations redondantes etc). On fait le pari qu’un investissement légèrement supérieur à la base représentera une économie considérable à l’usage sur le TCO (total cost of ownership – cout total de possession).

Ceci a été la première étape, limitant ainsi le nombre de serveurs à détenir.

En utilisant ces techniques de virtualisation à grande échelle, les gros fournisseurs de services (Google, Amazon etc) ont pu mettre en place des solutions grand format, afin de proposer l’ensemble des services habituellement gérés dans l’entreprise, comme un service externe.

Le gain pour l’entreprise au premier abord est alors évident ! Pas de serveurs informatiques à gérer, pas de machines de spare, pas de procédures de maintenance, pas d’adminsitrateur réseau ou de compétences à détenir en interne.

La solution SI (système d’information) clé en main était née.

Sur un aspect purement pratique, tout ceci est très brillant et alléchant. Mais voilà, la solidité d’une chaine on le sait, ne tient qu’au plus faible de ses maillons.

L’entreprise devient alors tributaire d’un grand nombre de facteurs hors de contrôle ! La liaison internet dans un premier temps, est la clé d’accès aux données, aux logiciels du cloud, plus de net, plus de cloud !! Car nous touchons ici le cloud computing !

Le cloud computing représente l’externalisation des besoins “SI” (système d’information) de l’entreprise chez des prestataires de services exploitant la virtualisation et les techniques de redondances pour tenter d’assurer un service permanent et une confidentialité optimale.

Mais, comme un nuage, le “cloud computing” est opaque ! Quelle entreprise prendra le risque de mettre son “coeur” entre les mains d’inconnus (qui sait qui travaille finalement chez le prestataire?!) malgré des contrats bétons, une panne, une erreur, la perte de donnée, et tous ces éléments sont hors de contrôle. Dans un marché volatile, il semble très risqué de miser sur le cloud computing pour l’intégralité de ses besoins !

Voilà un petit lien d’actualité, qui devra faire reflechir les décideurs :
http://www.lemagit.fr/article/microsoft-vmware-amazon-intrusion-ec2-azure-hyperviseur-xen-vulnerabilite/4154/1/soupcons-confirmes-cloud-public-recele-nouvelles-vulnerabilites/

Le cloud computing n’est rien d’autre, ni plus, ni moins, que l’externalisation des ressources informatiques. Le “cloud computing” pourrait s’étiqueter “toute mon Informatique et Telecom sur internet à la portée de tous (pirates inclus)”.

Il existe des sociétés qui proposent aux entreprises de créer leur propre “cloud”. De quoi s’agit il ? Finalement c’est simplement l’association de la location ou l’achat de serveurs, placé(s) dans un “datacentre”, le tout, infogéré par un prestataire exterieur.

Encore une fois, il s’agit d’externalisation.

Dans le milieu informatique, la virtualisation (base de tout ce système finalement car il permet d’avoir un grand nombre de systèmes installés sur une seule et même machine physique) est souvent utilisée pour les environnements de test. Le passage en production implique des méthodes très complexes de maintenance, car un parc virtualisé demande des compétences pointues, et parfois, ce qui peut sembler un avantage peut vite tourner au désastre.

Récupérer des données sur un disque dur qui tombe en panne, ou sur un système corrompu par un rootkit, un malware, un pirate, est une chose, récupérer des volumes virtuels corrompus sur des disques dur en panne, ou des solutions de stockage virtuelles peut parfois être une opération délicate.

Un exemple basique : Vous disposez d’un serveur physique, avec un raid 5. Votre carte contrôleur raid tombe en panne. Saurez vous accéder à nouveau à vos données ? !! Votre carte raide utilise telle les disques de manière transparente ? ou seule une carte du même modèle avec la même version de bios sera capable de vous rendre l’accès à vos données ?!…. Fallait il sauver les paramètres de votre raid ?

Ces questions ne se posent pas sur le cloud computing, enfin, pas pour le client, mais c’est une composante que le prestataire se doit de maitriser, tout comme la confidentialité de vos données, leur disponibilité etc.

Personnellement, je pense que la centralisation intégrale de l’IT de l’entreprise est une grosse erreur, et que chacun, devrait rester maître de ses outils. Utiliser ces services n’est pas un mal, mais en être totalement dépendant serait une grosse erreur stratégique. Et si votre plus gros concurrent avait des actions chez votre prestataire ?…. Qui prouvera que les pannes étaient accidentelles ?….

En espérant que cet article vous aide à savoir ce qu’est le “cloud computing”, ses avantages, ses dangers à ne pas ignorer. De la centralisation/externalisation à outrance, le “cloud computing”, en est. L’expression super tendance du moment dans la presse informatique ne doit pas faire perdre de vue les réalités du terrain.

Source : LezActus