Akatab

Try Akatab

Weights and styles

• Regular 400Akatab Regular
• Medium 500Akatab Medium
• SemiBold 600Akatab SemiBold
• Bold 700Akatab Bold
• ExtraBold 800Akatab ExtraBold
• Black 900Akatab Black

About Akatab

Akatab is a Unicode sans serif whose purpose is to set Tifinagh, in particular for the Tamahaq, Tamashek and Tawallamat languages. Its OpenType programming forms the bi-consonant ligatures those orthographies use, and the font carries variant shapes of some characters so that personal and regional preferences can be met. The Latin half, shown in the specimen, is a plain humanist sans with open apertures and a two-storey a and g; the license notice credits Adobe for the Latin glyphs. Six static weights run from Regular 400 through Medium, SemiBold, Bold and ExtraBold to Black 900, all upright. The fonts contain 642 glyphs in Latin and Tifinagh character sets. The catalogue credits SIL International, the font files and copyright say SIL Global, and Akatab is published under the SIL Open Font License 1.1 with Akatab as a reserved font name.

Where Akatab works

Text in Tamahaq, Tamashek and Tawallamat

These are the languages the font was built for, and it forms their bi-consonant ligatures through OpenType.

Literacy and school material

Six weights from Regular to Black allow headings, body text and emphasis in primers without leaving the script’s own font.

Bilingual Tifinagh and Latin pages

Tifinagh and Latin letters are drawn to sit together, so French or English glosses match the main text.

Apps and websites in Tifinagh

Medium and SemiBold give interface labels and buttons a step above Regular for hierarchy.

Regional spelling conventions

Alternate character shapes in the font can be selected where a community prefers a different form.

Glyphs

Language support

The family contains the core letters these languages are written with:

• English
• French
• German
• Spanish
• Portuguese
• Italian
• Dutch
• Swedish
• Norwegian
• Danish
• Finnish
• Icelandic
• Catalan
• Estonian

Writing systems with glyphs in the family besides Latin: Tifinagh. These are listed as scripts, not as a promise for every language written in them.

Character sets found in the files: latin, tifinagh. The language list is a check of required letters against the font, not a promise of typographic quality in each language.

License

Fonts that pair with Akatab

Suggestions come from simple rules on the records: a contrasting classification and enough weights to carry body text. They are a starting point, not a verdict.

Use Akatab on the web

Download the family and host the files on your own site, then declare them in CSS. Please do not link to the files on trendhub.net: preview files here are subsets and their addresses change.

@font-face {
  font-family: "Akatab";
  src: url("/assets/fonts/Akatab-Black.ttf") format("truetype");
  font-weight: 900;
  font-style: normal;
  font-display: swap;
}
@font-face {
  font-family: "Akatab";
  src: url("/assets/fonts/Akatab-Bold.ttf") format("truetype");
  font-weight: 700;
  font-style: normal;
  font-display: swap;
}
@font-face {
  font-family: "Akatab";
  src: url("/assets/fonts/Akatab-ExtraBold.ttf") format("truetype");
  font-weight: 800;
  font-style: normal;
  font-display: swap;
}
@font-face {
  font-family: "Akatab";
  src: url("/assets/fonts/Akatab-Medium.ttf") format("truetype");
  font-weight: 500;
  font-style: normal;
  font-display: swap;
}
/* …and 2 more files in the package, declared the same way */

body {
  font-family: "Akatab", sans-serif;
}

Or load it from the official source. Google Fonts serves Akatab with this markup:

<link rel="preconnect" href="https://fonts.googleapis.com">
<link rel="preconnect" href="https://fonts.gstatic.com" crossorigin>
<link href="https://fonts.googleapis.com/css2?family=Akatab:wght@400;500;600;700;800;900&display=swap" rel="stylesheet">

Things to know

No italic and no light weights

All six styles are upright and the range begins at Regular 400.

Latin coverage is basic

The Latin part covers English and Western European languages; Turkish, Polish and other Central European languages are not among those with complete letters.

Features depend on software

Ligatures and character variants are OpenType features, so they appear only in applications that apply them; the package documentation describes how.

FAQs

Similar fonts

Other families in the same classification, ordered by shared use tags. All sans serif fonts