The BBC commissioned Titus Nemeth to develop an extended and customized version of his award winning typeface Nassim. BBC World Service – the world’s largest broadcasting service – underwent a major redesign of all of its web portals at the time. The design team around Senior Creative Director Kutlu Çanlıoğlu was looking for an Arabic typeface with high legibilty and a contemporary aesthetic, that would work on the screen, and across platforms. A challenging task, since there was no successful implementation of Arabic webfonts at that point.
The project was realized in close cooperation with Rosetta and was the first of its kind to bring distinguished Arabic typography to the web. Language-specific editions of the fonts for Arabic, Pashto, Persian, and Urdu made it possible to deliver news in a culturally sensitive way. Each of the fonts has a strong tonality, unique to the respective region. The development and successful application of BBC Nassim marks an important step for digital Arabic typography. It set a new standard as millions of people around the globe read their news in it every day.
Client: BBC World Service
Year: 2010
Titus Nemeth is a type designer and typographer with specialist expertise in the Arabic script. He works as an independent designer and typographic consultant, building on his substantial experience and research in the field.
His original type designs have won multiple internationally renowned awards and are widely used for complex, cross-cultural, visual communication. Titus’ practice combines the making and the use of type, as he is convinced that both aspects inform each other: ‘the better I understand how type is used, the better I can design for it’.
Titus holds a PhD, and an MA in Typeface Design, from the University of Reading, UK, and a diploma in Graphic Design from Die Graphische in Vienna, Austria. He has taught type design and typography at a number of schools in France, Morocco, Qatar, and the United Kingdom.
