Al Qalam Shazil, designed by font designers Syed Shakir ul Qadree and Farhan Mustafa from Faisalabad, Pakistan, is a playful and creative font released on January 30, 2016. Each letter in this font is meticulously crafted to resemble real pencils, with some characters made up of straight and others of curved pencil strips, giving the font a distinct and playful appearance. Inspired by modern design aesthetics for creative projects, this font features 219 characters and symbols, with a glyph count of 336. It offers extensive language compatibility, including Urdu, Arabic, Latin, Persian, and more. Despite its playful design, the font maintains clear legibility, making it suitable for short-text applications.
The font’s thickness is thick but dynamic, with impactful and changing strokes. Vertical characters are generally straight with no decorations, featuring pointy edges made of pencil tips and rounded corners. The spaces between letters are constant, wide, creative, and decorative, adding to its unique aesthetic. Each letter retains organic irregularities, providing an artistic touch to the text. While Al Qalam Shazil has clear legibility, its practicality is limited due to its natural pencil-like appearance. It shares similarities with AA Sameer Pencil Unicode, although a few letters retain a more traditional chalk-writing feel. Due to its playful and creative design, it is best suited for use in children’s books, branding, and advertising projects related to pencils or creative endeavors.
