Darden Studio’s Omnes including Omnes Arabic is used for a leaflet advertising Berlin’s Super-Ferien-Pass.
The original (Latin) Omnes was designed by Joshua Darden. We commissioned Titus Nemeth to design a matching Arabic, in which he succeeded with bravura. While most Arabic font families come in one or two weights only, Titus translated the design to the full range of nine weights, from Hairline to Black. He comments:
The qualities of Omnes do not fall neatly within any narrow genre. Its characteristics change subtly through the weight range, and evoke different associations. Whilst at first glance Omnes appears playful, soft, and even cuddly, a closer look reveals that these traits are very controlled, and never stray too far from fairly conventional type forms. The shapes are highly synthetic, and far removed from traces of a writing tool – in apparent contrast to the most common Arabic typefaces.
Script extensions of popular typefaces are typically motivated by the demand of multinational or even global corporations. This is the case for Omnes, too. At the same time, though, once the fonts are made, they can also serve users with smaller budgets, and address the needs of linguistically diverse communities. The availability of Omnes Arabic allowed design studio Minkadu to create harmonious typography across the various languages spoken in Berlin. It makes us happy to see Omnes Latin and Omnes Arabic used side by side for that, conveying the information in different languages – German, Turkish, English, Arabic, and Polish – and yet in the same typographic voice. Minkadu combined Omnes with Laura Worthington’s Jumble and Patrick Griffin’s Marvin Round. Some text is set in Erik Spiekermann’s ITC Officina Sans.
The Super-Ferien-Pass, or Super Holiday Pass, is a booklet full of savings coupons, a swimming card, and exclusive raffles; including for free or discounted admission to the zoos, museums, cinemas, workshops, sports events, and more. It is issued by JugendKulturService, a non-profit funded by the Berlin Senate and Medienboard Berlin-Brandenburg.