Before we build anything, we want to settle the visual register. Each of the three routes below is a distinct answer to the same question: what does Dr. Sara Cheikh's rebrand feel like? They are not variations of one idea — they are genuinely different ideas. You will know the right one in the first thirty seconds.
The document of record. Gravitas through restraint. The visual language of a legal transcript someone will cite in fifty years.
The space between official language and lived reality. Dark-mode primary, high contrast, one thread of gold under pressure. Apollo Magazine meets an academic journal.
The researcher as mapmaker of institutional terrain. Contour lines, coordinate labels, diagrams as argument. Tufte crossed with a good atlas.
Routes A and B use preview fonts — close-cousin substitutes for the production faces (which are premium, licensed, and worth every cent of their fees: Brill and Greta Arabic for Route A; 29LT Zeyn and Pangea Text for Route B). We're using Google-hosted substitutes so this moodboard loads in a Doha coffee shop without asking you to wait.
Route C uses its real pairing — Literata for the Latin, Markazi Text for the Arabic, and JetBrains Mono for the data. All three are production-ready, free, and can be self-hosted on the final site without licensing negotiations. If Route C feels unfairly polished next to the others, imagine Routes A and B with their real faces loaded — they'll carry the same weight, with more gravitas.
We'll license whatever you pick. Nothing in the final build will depend on a substitute.