Arabic Logotype Concept for NYUAD

At its inception, NYUAD, the first of NYU’s degree-granting portal campuses located in a non-English nation, had an English-only logotype.

NYUAD's signature, originally created by Pentagram New York, existed in English but did not exist equivalently in Arabic. The one and only instance of its name presented in Arabic was on display on the main wall of the Downtown Campus, a poorly designed sign set in a generic default typeface.

Professor Goffredo Puccetti led a small team of students to create a potential Arabic/bilingual signature treated with the same research, thoughtfulness, and aesthetic as the original English signature. The team had to research existing Arabic typefaces, settling on TheSansArabic, and make small manipulations with the kashida (kerning) and stroke heights to keep the logo true to the Arabic language but also visually consistent with the English-language logo. It could be used as a bilingual or Arabic-only wordmark.

The resulting signature was inaugurated in 2013 during a campus visitor by the US Ambassador to the UAE, and was later replaced by the current lock-up.

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Photo on the right: The poorly designed sign for the university's name in Arabic in the Downtown Campus