Building a brand voice for Arabic markets

A brand voice that "sounds right" in English rarely lands in Arabic without work. Direct translation feels stilted; smart localization feels native.

Choose a register and stick to it Modern Standard Arabic, Gulf dialect, or Levantine — pick based on your audience, not on internal preference. Then use it everywhere.

Localize idioms, not words Replace English metaphors with Arabic ones with equivalent emotional weight. A literal translation of an idiom is almost always wrong.

RTL is a design decision, not a translation task Layouts, icon direction, and even data-viz axes should flip. Do this in design, not as a CSS afterthought.