Digital
Designing Arabic and English together
By Noriva · 8 August 2026
Bilingual design fails at the point where one language is treated as the translation of the other.
Mirroring a layout is the easy half. The half that decides whether a bilingual site feels designed is typographic: Arabic and Latin type have different vertical proportions, different comfortable line lengths, and different densities at the same nominal size. A heading scale tuned for one will look either timid or shouted in the other.
The practical consequence is that both directions have to be designed, not derived. That means choosing the Arabic face for its own merits rather than for its resemblance to the Latin one, setting separate size and leading scales, and reviewing real content in both languages before the layout is agreed.
It also means numerals, icons and directional affordances get decided deliberately. An arrow that means forward in one direction means back in the other, and no amount of CSS logic saves a layout where that was never considered.