Most bilingual business cards in Muscat are broken in subtle ways that a native Arabic reader notices in 2 seconds. The good news: the fix is mechanical, not artistic. Apply these rules and your card will read as professional in both languages.

The single biggest mistake

Applying letter-spacing (tracking) to Arabic text. Arabic is cursive. Letters connect. Adding 0.1em of letter-spacing breaks the joins so للرخام becomes ل ل ر خ ا م. Looks illiterate. Every Tailwind tracking class, every Photoshop tracking value above zero, every InDesign letter-spacing value, do not apply them to Arabic.

This is a HARD rule across every BHD Group project. If you are designing the card yourself, audit every Arabic text element and set its letter-spacing to 0 explicitly.

Font pairing

Use one EN font and one AR font that share visual weight. Some pairings that work:

Inter (EN) + IBM Plex Sans Arabic (AR), modern, neutral, professional
Helvetica (EN) + Tajawal (AR), clean, slightly retro
Plus Jakarta Sans (EN) + Noto Sans Arabic (AR), web-safe, friendly
Garamond Premier (EN) + Lateef (AR), formal, premium, traditional
The Year of The Camel (EN+AR, single family), distinctive, used by AlMaha and several BHD brands

Layout balance

Pick one of these layouts:

Two-sided: English on one side, Arabic on the other. Each side fully laid out as monolingual. Cleanest result. Adds OMR 1 per 100 for double-sided print.
Stacked single-side: Arabic version stacked vertically below the English version. Works for compact info. Risk: reads as secondary on one side.
Split single-side: Vertical line down the middle, English left, Arabic right. Modern look but tight on a 55x85mm card.

Hierarchy

Match font sizes between languages. If the English name is 12pt, the Arabic name should be 12pt (Arabic glyphs are taller, so this gives equal visual weight). Body text should drop to 8pt EN / 8pt AR.

Kashida for emphasis

If you want emphasis in Arabic, use kashida (U+0640 ـ) NOT letter-spacing. Example: ـطباعةـ or stretched as طبــــــاعة. The character extends the natural baseline.

Numbers

Phone numbers and addresses can use Arabic-Indic digits (٠١٢٣٤٥٦٧٨٩) on the Arabic side or Latin digits (0123456789) on both sides for international compatibility. Most Omani brands use Latin digits on both sides for B2B audiences.

Common Muscat printer mistakes you can audit

Letter-spaced Arabic, the cardinal sin.
Arabic stacked above English, suggesting English is primary (insulting in Oman).
English-sized Arabic, looks small because Arabic glyphs need more vertical space.
Different fonts on each side, breaks visual continuity.
Arabic with a serif face that has no diacritic positioning (vowel marks float wrong).

BHD's approach

Every BHD bilingual business card is laid out twice (once per language) by a designer who reads both. Our design studio reviews letter-spacing, font fallback, and number style as part of the standard QC checklist.

See full business card options at business cards page, or WhatsApp +968 98899100 with your name + role in both languages and we will send 3 layout options within an hour.

Bilingual EN+AR Business Card Design Rules