Dubai becomes the first city to have its own Microsoft font

Dubai became the first city in the world to have a typeface named after it on Microsoft Office systems.

The Dubai font was created in both Arabic and Latin letters in order to maximize its reach across different languages.

The initiative is aimed to bridge a gap between the Arabic and English font designs, the Dubai Executive Council said.

“For Dubai to take the initiative in the world of digital fonts, we looked at the Arabic fonts available across the world at the moment, we found that there is a gap between Arabic and English (font) designs. So Dubai wanted to prove to the world that it does not only consider the Arabic language but that Dubai is made up of several nationalities, over 200 nationalities live in Dubai in harmony; so Dubai wanted to launch to the world 23 languages through the creation of Dubai Font,” Ahmed al-Mahri, Assistant Secretary General of the Dubai Executive Council, said.

UAE government bodies have been told to adopt the new font in their correspondence in order to “guarantee the dissemination and success of this initiative on a local and global level” according to Sheikh Hamdan Crown Prince of Dubai and Chairman of the Executive Council of Dubai.

Microsoft has been working with global agency Monotype and font designer Nadine Chahine for the past year and a half to develop the Dubai font, according to Microsoft's Applications and Services Regional Director Ihsan Anabtawi.

“In addition to it being a high quality font that enhances the options that are already present in Office 365, especially in Arabic because it was designed by one of the best design houses across the world in this industry. It was designed with a focus on reading on different sized screens and today we are launching it world-wide through the Office 365 platform to more than 100 million people on different systems,” he said.

Dubai Executive Media Council says the number of freely available Arabic fonts is limited. Many people believe the fonts that are available are not up to par in quality with Microsoft's English fonts.

According to the dubaifont.com website, the new typeface will reach more than 85 million Microsoft users in 180 countries world-wide.

It is a freely available font for private and commercial use.