Stop 5 of 9 · Daily
Bilingual layout
What mirrors and what never mirrors, the type rules per script, the translation check Farah signs, and the InDesign handoff notes that stop a printer resetting your Arabic.
Two scripts, one layout, and a reader who reads one of them
Every campaign asset Farah makes exists twice. Not translated twice, made twice, because a mirrored layout with English typography rules applied to Arabic is the thing that makes a brand look imported.
The work splits cleanly: what mirrors, what does not, what changes size, and who signs the language.
What mirrors and what does not
| Mirrors | Stays put |
|---|---|
| Reading order and the eye path | The Latin logotype |
| The logo lockup position | Numerals and any figure set |
| Directional arrows, chevrons, progress | The product photograph |
| Text alignment and indents | Charts with a fixed time axis |
The last row on the right catches people. A timeline that runs left to right in the data still runs left to right in Arabic, because the axis is a measurement, not a sentence.
[attach the English layout as a PDF] Give me the mirror plan for the Arabic version. List every element and say mirror, keep or reposition, with one reason each. Flag anything where mirroring would break the composition rather than fix it, and tell me what the Arabic headline box needs to be if the Arabic runs longer than the English at the same measure.
Type per script
The Latin rules are in the guide. The Arabic rules are the ones the guide never wrote down and the ones a colleague breaks in the first minute of a template.
Arabic sits one size up from the Latin at the same optical size, with leading nearer 1.4 because the ascenders and descenders need it. It is never faux bolded, never artificially condensed, and never set in all capitals because there are none. Kashida is a display decision, not a justification tool, and justification by kashida on body text produces a column that stretches at random. Measure by words rather than characters: the same box that holds sixty Latin characters comfortably holds a very different amount of Arabic.
The translation check
Here is the English on-artwork line and the Arabic line for asset [number]: [paste both]. Check four things and answer each separately. One, do they make the same promise, and name any claim that exists in only one of them. Two, does the Arabic read as Arabic or as English word order in Arabic words. Three, are the numerals the set we use in this market, consistently. Four, where does the line break fall and does it split a phrase that should stay together. Do not rewrite anything yet, just tell me what you found.
Farah reads that output and decides. The check makes her fast, it does not make her optional. Every Arabic line in the campaign stays marked unchecked until she has read it against the artwork, not against the chat.
Rewrite Arabic lines 3, 7 and 11 to fix only what I marked: [paste your notes]. Keep the meaning, keep them within the measure of the English at the same box width, and keep the brand voice. Give me two options for each and say in six words what is different about the second.
The handoff note
Write the handoff note that goes with the Arabic InDesign package to our printer. Cover: paragraph composer and direction, the digit set setting, embedded fonts and why they cannot be substituted, no manual line breaks anywhere in Arabic text, bleed and colour space, and the one instruction about what to do if type does not render as expected. Keep it under two hundred words and write it in Arabic and English.