Movable type in Ottoman printing and contemporary ruq'ah font design

Movable Type in Ottoman Printing and Contemporary Rik'a Font Design examines the use of script styles that evolved in Ottoman territories within printing practices and evaluates their place in the fields of calligraphy and typography. Furthermore, using today's digital technologies, which have replaced movable type, a font based on Halim Özyazıcı's ruq'ah script has been designed. At the intersection of technology and traditional arts, fonts designed with the characteristics of Arabic script systems and calligraphy hold significant importance. However, existing digital font designs do not fully reflect the aesthetic, structural rules, and original character of calligraphy in terms of letter connections, proportions, slants, and line composition. Considering the deficiencies and errors in contemporary designs, this study highlights the necessity of creating a new typeface grounded in the forms and rules of calligraphy. The ruq'ah script, widely used in the Ottoman period, was chosen for this font design due to its practicality, simplicity, and inherently aesthetic structure. During the design process, letterforms were developed, harmony in their connections was achieved, and ligatures, alternative letterforms, and contextual alternates were created. A font with Unicode and OpenType technology has been developed for use in Arabic and Ottoman Turkish languages. This font design not only preserves a cultural heritage but also establishes a bridge to modern design processes by playing an active role in fields such as graphic design and visual communication on digital platforms. Keywords: Islamic Calligraphy, Ruq'ah, Typography, Movable Type, Typeface Design.