Type Specimen: Finesse Serif - by Fabio Rubini

Finesse

Finesse designed by Fabio Rubini

Upper case

ABCDEFGHIJKLM NOPQRSTUVWXYZ Lower case

abcdefghijklm nopqrstuvwxyz Numbers

123456790

INTRODUCING FINESSE Starting from the original Chronicle font I worked on the skeleton of each letter and on the brushes, giving Finesse a unique style. The size, such as the angle and roundness of the brush used for Finesse has a slightly low number giving the letters a high contrast and a more elegant handwritten look.

THE BRUSH

Letters

m medium contrast

blunt terminals

p

upper serif

f opened joints

Features

i

unbracketed serif

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o upper serif (v,w,x,z)

transitional axis

v

rif s e se en h t s e e betw n etim Som mixed em eve are ing th amism n iv rs g ore dy lette m

Th low e ba un erc seli be brac ase ne s low twee ket x a erif er n t ed b re n s of se he ut ot the rif up tw bo s pe ist th r a ed nd

14 pt

36 pt

12/14,5 pt

Dubliners

EVELINE She sat at the window watching the evening invade the avenue. Her head was leaned against the window curtains and in her nostrils was the odour of dusty cretonne. She was tired.

Few people passed. The man out of the last house passed on his way home; she heard his footsteps clacking along the concrete pavement and afterwards crunching on the cinder path before the new red houses.

One time there used to be a field there in which they used to play every evening with other people’s children. Then a man from Belfast bought the field and built houses in it-not like their little brown houses but bright brick houses with shining roofs. The children of the avenue used to play together in that field-the Devines, the Waters, the Dunns, little Keogh the cripple, she and her brothers and sisters. Ernest, however, never played: he was too grown up. Her father used often to hunt them in out of the field with his blackthorn stick; but usually little Keogh used to keep nix and call out when he saw her father coming. [...]

8/9,5 pt

Born James Augustine Aloysius Joyce on February 2, 1882 in Dublin, Ireland, Joyce was one of the most revered writers of the 20th century, whose landmark book, Ulysses, is often hailed as one of the finest novels ever written. His exploration of language and new literary forms showed not only his genius as a writer but spawned a fresh approach for novelists, one that drew heavily on Joyce’s love of the stream-of-consciousness technique and the examination of big events through small happenings in everyday lives.

Joyce came from a big family. He was the eldest of ten children born to John Stanislaus Joyce and his wife Marry Murray Joyce. His father, while a talented singer (he reportedly had one of the finest tenor voices in all of Ireland), didn’t provide a stable a household. He liked to drink and his lack of attention to the family finances meant the Joyces never had much money.He was the eldest of ten children born to John Stanislaus Joyce and his wife Marry Murray Joyce. His father, while a talented singer, didn’t provide a stable a household. He liked to drink and his lack of attention to the family finances meant the Joyces never had much money.

d igitalization

Axis and terminal inclinations

90o o

25

r

81 o

46 o

vero 0o

the unbracketed serifs placed on the baselline give the letters a more elegant look wich are in contrast with the upper serifs that looks more dynamic.

36 pt

Joice’s Dubliners

32 pt

Joice’s Dubliners

24 pt

Joice’s Dubliners

21 pt

Joice’s Dubliners

18 pt

Joice’s Dubliners

14 pt

Joice’s Dubliners

12 pt

Joice’s Dubliners

10 pt

Joice’s Dubliners

8 pt

Joice’s Dubliners

24 pt

Not one, not two but three

Mr. James Joyce’s “Ulysses” is written in a dozen styles. In its general outline a very close resemblance to the typical Joyce manner of expression may be found in the ordinary productions of the ouija board Anyone who has ever attempted to piece together the incoherent array of words and sentences expressed by the planchette will have a fairly good idea of the difficulty encountered in reading “Ulysses.” There are score upon score of pages that resemble ouija’s incoherent writing. They resemble the ouija’s writing also, strangely enough, in subject-matter.It is not intended for a moment to suggest that any portion of “Ulysses” was written by the aid of the ouija board. The book has been too carefully and consciously wrought. It has not been written easily.

Mr. Joyce’s own formula has imposed upon him certain limitations which careless writing would be certain to overstep. There is to be found in “Ulysses” some of the finest English that has been written.

8/9,5 pt

Mr. Joyce has a marvellous aptitude for turning phrases. He knows how to put just the right “Irish” on his words.

To him the inexpressible does not exist. He proves the suppleness, the flexibility of English. Undoubtedly, it is this compelling display of verbal virtuosity that will keep many a reader reading on and on and on, even. when the sense escapes him. There is in “Ulysses” a witchery of words that woos. About the morality of the piece, there is only one thing to say. It may be pernicious, it may be salutary, according to the spirit in which it is read. Every reader will make of it what he himself is. It is, therefore, neither moral nor immoral. The question of obscenity is also a purely relative one. Everything is relative-even the theory of relativity. To anyone with an innocence of the eye for words there is nothing obscene in “Ulysses,” although it does contain a-plenty of what Walter Pater might have called “racy morsels of the vernacular.”

Three years later I sat in the library at the University of Bergen reading “Ulysses” in English. By that time, the literary adventures of my boyhood and youth had been cast aside and my naïve notion of literature’s essence adjusted, but the idea of it belonging to others, those with talent and knowledge who inhabited the center, lingered on. I never related “Ulysses” to my own world, to the young people at the desks around me - even though one of the scenes in the book takes place in a library, among students - not to mention the cobbled streets outside, the gateways and alleys, the shop windows and hoardings, the umbrellas, strollers, raincoats and overcoats. No, “Ulysses” took place in the language, and the reality the novel described occurred in the land of modernism, in the depths of literature’s continent.

And how different it was! Where “Ulysses” scatters, “Portrait” holds together.

Joints

the opened joints are contrasting the handwritten look of the font giving it a more modern aspect.

Ar a by

50 pt

12/14 pt

40 pt

8/9,5 pt

Araby [...] One evening I went into the back drawing-room in which the priest had died. It was a dark rainy evening and there was no sound in the house. Through one of the broken panes I heard the rain impinge upon the earth, the fine incessant needles of water playing in the sodden beds. Some distant lamp or lighted window gleamed below me. I was thankful that I could see so little. All my senses seemed to desire to veil themselves and, feeling that I was about to slip from them, I pressed the palms of my hands together until they trembled, murmuring:

“O love! O love!�

While she spoke she turned a silver bracelet round and round her wrist. She could not go, she said, because there would be a retreat that week in her convent. Her brother and two other boys were fighting for their caps and I was alone at the railings. She held one of the spikes, bowing her head towards me. The light from the lamp opposite our door caught the white curve of her neck, lit up her hair that rested there and, falling, lit up the hand upon the railing. It fell over one side of her dress and caught the white border of a petticoat, just visible as she stood at ease.

What innumerable follies laid waste my waking and sleeping thoughts after that evening! I wished to annihilate the tedious intervening days. I chafed against the work of school. At night in my bedroom and by day in the classroom her image came between me and the page I strove to read.

The syllables of the word Araby were called to me through the silence in which my soul luxuriated and cast an Eastern enchantment over me. I asked for leave to go to the bazaar on Saturday night. My aunt was surprised and hoped it was not some Freemason affair.

T

N O F Y M

ers Dublin that the ed on what e year k r m a a b s m e Th rk ce e landma ut, Joy came o ove to be his y recount r pr to s ld e u h o w s. T Ulysse ublin. novel: D day in le g in s a

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1 9 1 4

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ged a r e t deba , had t y u r o o t e s r cam rts of the e v e s se Pa tions r s a . l y c l i e l v U b o e n pu he n ed fo a t c n f i n r o a e t b onten sh and Am book was ce. i n l e a g r h n t F in E UK pted d in e e m h h t o s r i d l p b an y ine e US er it was pu d obscenit z a g a em aft ose years ses’s supp issues of th lys U , fiscate ork.

S n U o c e to c i f f ce’s w y O o J st lished b u p ad

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Faculty of Design and Art Free University of Bolzano - Bozen Typeface designed by Fabio Rubini WUP 18/19 Prof. Antonino Benincasa Gian Marco Favretto Maximilian Boiger Calligraphy Workshop by Mag. Art. Eva Pรถll Font created with Illustrator & Fontself