Rakkas — Free Arabic Google Font
Rakkas takes its energy from Ruq'ah-style hand lettering on Egyptian movie posters of the 1950s and '60s, using contextual alternates so letterforms shift and cascade the way brush calligraphy does. It's a single-weight display face built to be seen, not read at length — think titles and posters, not paragraphs.
About Rakkas
Rakkas is a single-weight display typeface by Zeynep Akay, a London-based type designer, added to Google Fonts in 2016. The Arabic is inspired by the Ruq'ah lettering on Egyptian movie posters of the 1950s and 60s, and uses contextual alternates so letters change form and cascade vertically like calligraphy. The Latin, drawn in a shared style, brings informality to blackletter.
A bolder, more decorative descendant of Ruq'ah handwriting than Aref Ruqaa, Rakkas carries enough personality for display use on its own — best kept to short phrases or titles rather than body text, where its weight becomes harder to read at length.
Designer: Zeynep Akay
Best used for
- Posters and movie-style titles
- Logos and wordmarks
- Short, high-impact display text
How Rakkas compares
Aref Ruqaa captures classical Ruq'ah handwriting in a restrained, readable way; Rakkas pushes the same tradition into loud poster lettering. Against Lemonada, another expressive display family, Rakkas is heavier and more theatrical and has a single weight, while Lemonada offers five weights and stays usable at smaller sizes. Choose Rakkas only when the text is a few words long and meant to shout.
Tips for using Rakkas
Rakkas is for short, loud text: film titles, event posters, packaging, food and festival branding. Use it big and keep phrases short; it is not meant for sentences. With only one weight, create hierarchy through size and colour, and pair it with a quiet sans such as Tajawal or Cairo for any supporting text.
Arabic character preview
ا ب ت ث ج ح خ د ذ ر ز س ش ص ض ط ظ ع غ ف ق ك ل م ن ه و ي
بسم الله الرحمن الرحيم — مرحبا بالعالم — ٠١٢٣٤٥٦٧٨٩
Download Rakkas
Using Rakkas on the web
Load it from the Google Fonts CDN:
<link href="https://fonts.googleapis.com/css2?family=Rakkas:wght@400&display=swap" rel="stylesheet">Then reference it in your CSS:
font-family: "Rakkas", sans-serif;License
Licensed under the SIL Open Font License — free for personal and commercial use. What the OFL allows →