The Universal version is Parachute’s most ambitious text typeface, as for the first time a contemporary arabic equivalent to this comprehensive DIN series of fonts is designed. This set of fonts contains the most complete and powerful array of arabic features commercially available. The four major scripts Latin, Arabic, Cyrillic and Greek are now matched and exist under the same family.
Copyright ©2002, 2005, 2010
Designer: Panos Vassiliou
Arabic extension by Hasan Abu Afash
Back in 1936 the German Standards committee Deutsches Institut Normung (DIN) proposed DIN 1451 as the standard type of lettering for road signage. As the original manual states ‘the purpose of this standard is to lay down a style of lettering which is timeless and easily legible’. This font has been revised by the committee over the years several times but only in two basic styles. The DIN Text series was based on the original standards but was completely redesigned to fit typographic requirements. Completed in 2002, it was first released in 2003 and published in our award-winning catalog, as a group of 4 separate families each with 12 weights for a total of 48 weights (regular weights, condensed, compressed and a special display version). The DIN Text Pro series which was released the following years, was enhanced with more weights, multilingual support for all European languages and opentype features in all different styles. It has lowercase ascenders that are higher than the capitals, varying letter proportions and italics (just like the first release) that are not a mechanically-obliqued version of the regular weights, but rather true designed italics. An attempt was made to divert from the stiff geometric structure of the original and introduce instead elements which are familiar, softer and easier to read. The glyphs for all languages have been carefully and professionally designed to not only share the same weight and structure but to reflect the current trends in all different scripts as well. Every font in this series was completed with 270 copyright-free symbols, some of which have been proposed by several international organizations for packaging, public areas, environment, transportation, computers, fabric care. In 2010 a new set of elegant hairline weights were added to the DIN series and a couple of months later DIN Text Universal was released. The Universal version is Parachute’s most ambitious text typeface, as for the first time a contemporary arabic equivalent to this comprehensive DIN series of fonts is designed. In fact, this set of fonts contains the most complete and powerful array of arabic features commercially available. The four major scripts Latin, Arabic, Cyrillic and Greek are now matched across the design of the whole family, respecting at the same time each one's modern cultural identity. With its vast array of weights, the extended support for numerous languages, its careful and detailed design, it will prove to be extremely valuable for many complex corporate projects.
Pre-programmed to automatically replace Arabic glyphs with alternate forms which sit better next to neighbouring letters. This feature replaces medial Heh with an alternate form when glyphs such as medial Heh, final Ain, etc follow. Similarly, it replaces final Meem with an alternate form when glyphs such as initial Seen, Initial Sad, etc follow
Fractions : Figures separated by slash, are replaced with diagonal fractions.
Replaces isolated forms of all Arabic letters to their required initial forms.
This feature changes isolated forms of Arabic heh to anaother isolated form
Ligatures: Replaces a sequence of glyphs with a single glyph, creating a professional-looking text with no peculiar collisions among letters. This feature covers the standard f-ligatures, as well as few other ones used in normal conditions.
Discretional ligatures: Replaces a sequence of glyphs with a single glyph. It differs from the previous feature in the fact that it activates special (non-standard) ligatures for Latin and Greek.
Replaces a sequence of glyphs with a single glyph, creating a professional-looking text with no peculiar collisions among letters. It covers the standard f-ligatures, as well as few other ones used in normal conditions. This feature also covers Arabic Beh Reh, Beh Noon, Beh Yeh ligatures as well as some words required for the Arabic script.
This feature positions mark glyphs above and below base Arabic glyphs in accurate position.
This feature changes isolated forms of all Arabic letters correspodingly to their required medial forms.
Oldstyle figures : Changes selected figures from the default lining to oldstyle i.e. numbers of
varying height. These are appropriate for use with lowercase text. They come in two different styles:
tabular and proportional. Tabular figures have equal widths (useful for tables, so that numbers line
up from one line to the next) whereas proportional have varying widths and are basically used within a sentence.
Lining figures : This feature changes selected figures from oldstyle to the default lining form. Lining figures are numbers which fit better with all-capital text and they are of the same height as capitals or a bit smaller. They also come in two different styles: tabular and proportional.
Proportional figures : Replaces selected figure glyphs which are set on tabular widths (lining or oldstyle), with corresponding glyphs set on proportional widths (lining or oldstyle).
Tabular figures : Replaces selected figure glyphs which are set on proportional widths (lining or oldstyle), with corresponding glyphs set on tabular widths (lining or oldstyle).
Ordinals : Contextually replaces default alphabetic glyphs which follow numbers with superscripted glyphs and the sequence ‘No’ with the numero character (No). This feature includes Latin as well as Greek lowercase and capital ordinals.
Replaces a sequence of glyphs with a single glyph. This feature covers those Arabic ligatures which are required to be used in normal conditions. Such a ligature is LamAlif which is always formed when Lam is followed by Alif.
Small Caps: This feature formats lowercase text as small caps. These are not computer generated scaled-down versions of capitals, but rather glyphs which have been designed to match the weight and proportions of the rest of the family characters. They are often used in combination with oldstyle figures, for acronyms and abbreviations and stylistically at the beginning of a paragraph (this feature includes Latin, Greek and Cyrillic small caps).
Small Caps from Capitals: Replaces capital glyphs with small caps (this feature includes Latin, Greek and Cyrillic small caps).
Superiors : Replaces lining and oldstyle figures with superior figures and lowercase letters with
superior letters. These superior glyphs are not computer generated scaled-down versions but are rather
redesigned to match the weight of the regular glyphs. Superior figures are used mainly for footnotes
and superior letters for abbreviated titles (this feature includes Latin as well as Greek superior
lowercase and capital letters).
Scientific inferiors : Replaces lining and oldstyle figures with inferior figures. They have been
designed to match the weight of the regular glyphs and sit lower than the standard baseline. Used
primarily for mathematical and chemical notations.
Ornaments/Various Symbols :
This feature may replace the bullet or other characters with any of the available ornaments/symbols. All of them are best accessed from the program’s ‘Glyphs Palette’ when available. There is a total of 270 ornaments/symbols included for packaging, public areas, environment, transportation, computers, fabric care, urban life.
This feature changes isolated forms of all Arabic letters to their required final forms.
3320 glyphs /font
incl. 270 special symbols
Small Caps, Standard Ligatures, Discretionary Ligatures, Required Ligatures, Oldstyle Figures, Lining Figures, Superiors (numerals/lowercase letters), Scientific Inferiors, Fractions, Ordinals, Stylistic Alternates, Numerators / denominators, Ornaments/various symbols, Mark Positioning, Mark to mark Positioning, Isolated Forms, Contextual Alternates, Initial Forms, Medial Forms, Terminal Forms, Glyph Composition/Decomposition.
family: €995.00
single weight: €165.00