“Cultural Connectives is a about bridging the gap between the Arabic and Latin alphabets”
Oh man! another book in such a short time. Well, this is the kind of book that you can finish reading in couple of hours. Its not that its a bad book or any of that, but it was designed and authored to be read this fast.
I would say that this book has two main purposes; the first one is a short and quick guide for non Arabic speakers to learn the basic principles of the written Arabic. The other purpose is to show case the font that Rana designed which is called Mirsaal. It is a bilingual font (Arabic & Latin) that come in regular and bold. The Arabic version is based on what the Lebanese architect Nasri Khattar started in 1947 when he invented Unified Arabic. This invention was an Arabic font that is detached, to make it much easier to print using movable type.
As for the book, as Rana said, its basically to bridge the gap. The book won't teach the reader how to design Arabic type. It is more on how written Arabic works, a bit about Arabic typography, and type design. The language and illustrations in the book are smart, simple and to the point. I believe that the main audience for this book would be non-Arabic speakers and designers who want to learn a bit about it to get familiar of the Arabic typography system. It was a good read and the way it was put together will help me in my thesis project.