Animated Calligraphy and Typography Database (ACTD)

Founded in 2019 at the same time with the publication of the book, Arabic Script in Motion: A Theory of Temporal Text-based Art, ACTD is a (non-profit) growing and leading resource that showcases various examples of temporal text-based art created using the Arabic system of writing (which is the script used in writing many languages including Arabic, Persian, Ottoman Turkish, Urdu, Malay, etc.). It is dedicated to fostering awareness and scholarship of temporal text-based art, including calligraphic animation, animated typography, animated fonts, animated logo, and temporal calligaphic art written in the Arabic alphabet. The collection is available to artists, designers, scholars and educational institutions, cultural institutions and alternative exhibitors.

The Animated Calligraphy and Typography Database (ACTD) is committed to fostering awareness and scholarship of the history and contemporary practices of temporal text-based art and temporal typography written in the Arabic alphabet, to promoting time-based calligraphic art and artworks represented in the ACTD collection, to providing access to the collection, and to assuring the growth of the collection for the use of artists, designers, and scholars.

If you are an artist or a designer interested in showcasing your temporal text-based artwork on the Animated Calligraphy and Typorgaphy Database, please click here.

The ACTD was produced with the financial assistance of the ASIFA-Hollywood’s Animation Educators Forum 2021 Faculty Grant