Tutorials

This film shows how to save your work, find it again, and open it on another device. Start with any design. Here, a ready welcome phrase, a little bigger. Give the project a name in the box at the top. Press Save. The project is kept in this browser, and each new save keeps the earlier versions too. Projects lists everything you've saved, with a picture of each. Open, duplicate or delete from here. All projects opens a bigger view, where you can search and tag them. Share makes a link to this exact design and copies it for you. Open it on your phone, or send it on WhatsApp, and the project opens there. To have every project on every device, sign in with your Mashq account, and your saved projects follow you.

This film shows how to switch the Studio between English and Arabic, or show both at once. The AR button at the top switches every label to Arabic, and the layout turns right to left. The Studio remembers your choice, so it opens in Arabic next time. The same button, now «إنجليزية», brings English back. To see both languages together, open View and choose Labels: both languages. Every label now reads in English and Arabic: handy while you learn the words, or when you share the screen with someone who reads the other. View also has Mirror the layout, which moves the panels to the other side. And Labels: English only goes back to one language. Links from mashq.ae open the Studio in the language of the page you came from.

This film shows how to write a name in Arabic calligraphy, even if you don't read Arabic. Type the name in English letters in the Text box. Here, Sarah. Press Arabize, and the Studio writes it in Arabic: سارة. Common names come from a dictionary, so you get the spelling Arabic readers expect. Make it bigger, then choose a script. Diwani suits a name: flowing and elegant. Gold ink makes it a gift. Another name? Type it and press Arabize again: James becomes جيمس. Not sure about a spelling? Ask support sends your design to us on WhatsApp. When it looks right, download it, or order it as a finished piece.

This film shows how to order one design for a whole team: corporate gifts, a wedding, a class. Start with one name, styled the way you want it. Here, سارة in Diwani, in gold. Open Order a piece, then Bulk quote. The Batch names box opens. Type or paste the names in Arabic, one per line. Generate designs makes one design per name, in the same style. A long name shrinks to fit. They are saved in Projects, one design per name. Export all downloads them as one zip, an SVG file per name. It counts as a single download. Bulk quote puts one piece per name in your cart at the store. Six pieces. Worldwide Express is charged once per order, whatever the quantity. The names and your design travel with the order to the workshop. Prefer to talk first? Send the basket on WhatsApp.

Lesson one of the Naskh path. The alif: the yardstick of every letter. In this lesson we write one letter. The alif is one upright stroke. In Naskh it stands five dots tall, and every other letter is measured against it. The dots beside the alif are its measure: five dots, corner on corner, in one column. The lesson has four steps. Each step opens when you pass the one before it. The pass marks are eighty per cent, then seventy, sixty, and fifty-five. When the letter passes from memory, the lesson is marked as passed on the path. Here is how each step looks. Over the letter: write slowly over the faint letter, with a mouse, a finger or a pencil. The reed nib gives thick and thin from the angle of the pen, as on paper. Inside the hollow letter: the letter is drawn as its outline, and we write inside it. Beside the model: the model stands at the right, and we write the same at the left, on the same line. From memory: the model is put away. We write it on the line, then press Done. On paper, set five dots corner on corner in one column beside your alif, then press Read my sheet, and the camera reads it. Next comes lesson two. The dot: one pen-width, the measure of every letter.

Lesson two of the Naskh path. The dot: one pen-width, the measure of every letter. In this lesson we write two letters, one after the other. The dot is the pen set down and drawn its own width. It is the unit of the measure, and it is part of letters too: one dot under the baa, one dot over the noon. Beside the model stands the measure: the alif of Naskh is five dots tall, and every letter is measured by the same dots. The lesson has four steps. Each step opens when you pass the one before it. The pass marks are eighty per cent, then seventy, sixty, and fifty-five. Each letter goes through all four steps; then the next letter opens. When every letter has been written from memory, the lesson is marked as passed on the path. Here is how each step looks. Over the letter: write slowly over the faint letter, with a mouse, a finger or a pencil. The reed nib gives thick and thin from the angle of the pen, as on paper. Inside the hollow letter: the letter is drawn as its outline, and we write inside it. Beside the model: the model stands at the right, and we write the same at the left, on the same line. From memory: the model is put away. We write it on the line, then press Done. On paper, set five dots corner on corner in one column beside your alif, then press Read my sheet, and the camera reads it. Next comes lesson three. Baa family.