No one can deny that Arabic is one of the best looking written languages out there, it’s considered a highly sophisticated art form in addition of it being a communication medium.
Yet the amount of Arabic fonts that are available on Windows, Mac, Linux and the Web is very few. This problem was a discussion topic about between some of the participants -including me- at BarCamp Lebanon event, we tried to do something to solve this problem, but not much work was done!
Though the idea now is supported by Dubai, UAE based CloudAppers and its founder Baher Al Hakim.
Founded in 2008, CloudAppers is a small web applications development house and social media agency, it has built a couple of web application and has received seed funding from @PKGulati.
CloudAppers has developed a web service that tackles the Arabic fonts problem in the web called Tiba3a. The service would enable any website to use any Arabic fonts they want with ease.
Tiba3a will host host the fonts on its server and website who needs them, only need to copy and past a small Javascript code on their websites and they are good to go. Tiba3a currently supporting Safari 3.2.+ – Firefox 3.2 +and – IE in the future.
The service is planning to partner with the owners and the designers of the fonts, who would offer their fonts and Tiba3a will share the revenues it generate from licensing fees it gets from the websites that use them.
“Tiba3a will offer a solid level of protection that protects the rights of type owners and designers and makes it impossible for anyone to get a copy of the used font.” Baher told ArabCrunch.
Baher also said that Tiba3a inspired by Typekit, that’s doing the same for English fonts.
Though Tiba3a technically is ready to roll it is not yet launched since it needs the Arabic fonts to host, Baher said that they are in talks with couple of Arabic fonts foundries.
ArabCrunch growing network supports Arab Startups in different means, but that does not mean that ArabCrunch English editorial policy is biased towards them, we are neutral. We say you are good to someone if they are really good, or we offer some advice in how to improve the service or the product among other tips and posts related to starting and running a company. The main help ArabCrunch English offers to Arab startups is through writing about them so the world would know about them taking into account that heavy wight executives at the largest IT companies in the world read AC, let alone the most popular bloggers in the world and the western media, something that no one did when ArabCrunch started. Though if there are 2 services one from Arab origins and the other from a western origins, we say who is better based in who is better not based on who is Arab and who is not. An example that we favor and use Twitter over its Arabic clone “WatWet” for many reasons.
Though any initiative that aims to help Arabic problems on the web, is fully supported by me, so If you know any font designer you can drop CoudAppers a line.