A rare Arabic typographical find and its relevance for modern font technology

Tom Milo, lives in Amsterdam, The Netherlands, and was educated at the Vossius Gymnasium, Amsterdam, followed by four years of Slavic Studies with Old Church Slavonic, Russian, Bulgarian and Macedonian at the University of Amsterdam, six years of Turkish Studies with Ottoman Turkish, Modern Turkish, Azeri & Yakut Turkic at the University of Leiden with additional Arabic Studies including Modern Standard Arabic as well as Egyptian, Lebanese and Moroccan Arabic at the University of Amesterdam. Tom obtained an HGV (heavy goods vehicle) driving licence and worked in Saudi Arabia in a Dutch trucking company from 1976 to 19n. This turned out to be an excel­lent way to develop conversational and driving skills in both Arabic and Turkish, as the firm mainly employed Turkish drivers on the roads between the North Sea and the Gulf. Tom served as a captain in the Royal Netherlands Army and completed two tours of duty as an Arabic speaking officer in the United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon. Worked as a free­lancer producing Moroccan dialect translations of the Amsterdam City Council Information Office. During this time he also taught courses of Turkish and Moroccan Arabic. In 1985 he incorporated DecoType together with two part­ners: Mirjam Somers, an architect and Peter Somers, an aircraft engineer. DecoType con­tributes fonts and Arabic Calligraphy applica­tions to Microsoft Office Arabic Edition; to Adobe PageMaker Middle East DecoType pro­vides a special interface for Calligraphic type­setting; to the Maces 9 it contributes Arabic fonts and together with Barco Graphics DecoType is working on a complete implemen­tation of its design strategy