Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #218128 in Books
• Published on: 2006-02-28
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Hardcover
• 224 pages

Customer Reviews

A delightful book for the age of "clash of civilisations "
I bought Arabic for Designers out of curiosity. I was compelled to write a review on it because of the beautiful illustrations. I was also taken in by the detailed examples of how to merge the Latin and Arabic scripts, from designing money to cellular phone front screens. This is a must-buy book for students of design especially those who deal with multilingual markets. The illustrated examples of misrepresented logos or signs give you food for thoughts on the amount of money companies and governments waste due to lack of attention to details or perhaps the lack of "know how".

Beyond the world of typesetting and design, this book is entertaining and hilarious at times. There are many examples depicting the phonetic translation of words which misinform, and road signs which direct you in opposite directions depending on the language. The book is very colourful, literally, and every page tells you a different story. This makes it a very easy read, in fact it's so visual there's not much to read in order to understand! The book brought to mind the HSBC advertisement campaign "the world's local bank", where local knowledge is business.
Mr Boutros is an artist and this book is a good reflection of how art is an everyday activity.

not sure..
i am not sure what to say about this book. I bought it with the perception that it would offer technical tips, tools, or techniques on how to create and design Arabic material for print. As a native Arabic speaker, and for someone who has lived in the Middle East for some time, I didn't find this book very useful. I think its aimed more to non-Arabic speaking designers who want to venture into the Arabic Market.

At the same time, it does contain useful tips on how to approach an Arabic project (the do's and don'ts - though largely cultural based) than it is design related. For example, at the beginning of the book, a case study mentioned is a Coca-Cola ad that was deemed offensive to the Muslim World; the lesson: make sure you don't design something that would be taken the wrong way (also very cultural). Or at some point the book, the text from a Kuwait Airlines magazine that was written in Arabic, from left to right (instead of right to left)- the author points out the importance of understanding the dynamics of the language, etc.

I still think Butrous did a good job collecting all this information in a book, with a wealth of examples for the non-Arabic designer (and designers in general working in the Middle East). But like I said, don't expect hands on training on how to make exquisite Arabic texts or designs - its more of an inspirational tool.

I found that books on Islamic art/design provide better understanding and help in designing material with an Arabic feel.

so its a three (maybe 2.5) stars from me..