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I said elsewhere that letters must be always drawn in the same position wrt the reference line: the raa# راء always hangs from it, the #alif ألف always sits on it... but that was just a rule-of-thumb. Sometimes, there are good reasons to raise or lower the letters.
You have a very good reason to do that
when you think that the word looks nicer this way.
The figure on the right shows
the name of the Holy Prophet,
mHmd محمد (peace be upon Him) written print-style.
(DON'T copy that name, it's
holy
and belongs to Muslims only.)
All letters sit on the baseline.
But the word looks better if the first three letters
are stacked on top of each other.
If we do that, the first letters of the word will have to
float above the baseline
and the last ones sink below it, so the center of mass of the word
stays level with the surrounding words'.
I first wrote this is the word (Huruwf حروف "letters")
on a grid, according to the instructions of this website,
and then I erased the grid.
Drawing the raa# راء and the waaw واو
at the same height forces us to leave a good amount of space
between them,
which may look rather disgusting.
In this case, we might as well
make the waaw واو sit on the lap of the raa# راء.
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This is the word #iltizaam إلتزام "compromise, engagement".
As recommended in sections ا
and م,
the last letter hangs from the baseline and the next-to-last
sits upon it.
As one of the letters
is very high and the other very low,
we might feel a lack of balance here.
If so, feel free to move
the letters up or down until they "feel" right.
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You can improve your sense of balance by seeing good samples of Arabic writing, by seeing bad samples, and by writing yourself Arabic words in pencil. Try to develop your own set of criteria.
Copyright (c) 2001-2009
Jordi Mas Trullenque.
email: jordimastrullenque at gmail dot com
http://purl.oclc.org/net/arabe/ajuste.en.html
Last revised: 2006-05-19
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