FS Brabo

A S P E C I M E N of T H E T Y P E FAC E

FS BRABO

By Fernando Mello

Brabo and the giant Antigoon FS Brabo The Eloquent Type ­ —

Smart Dependable Enduring Affable Well-read Lyrical Articulate

Regular Italic Bold Bold Italic

A tale of the hero of Antwerp

Published by

FONTSMITH london mmxv

76 pt

60 pt

54 pt

48 pt

40 pt

34 pt

28 pt

Long, long ago and far

away, in the Roman province of Belgica, in the northernmost, chilliest reaches of Gaul,

where the land is even flatter than

the sea, there was a town where everyone was happy. ¶ The bustling town’s thriving port meant that business was good for one and all. Standing where the River Scaldis doubles back & broadens out on its final meander towards the North Sea, the town was a centre of trade for jewels, exotic wines, spices & textiles. ¶ People and old, rich and poor, bearded and smooth, good and evil…

12 pt

chapter one Where our hero gets a bee in his bonnet

14 pt

contents The tale of Brabo Introduction..........2 Chapter one...........2 Act two..................3 Chapter three........3 Epilogue................3 The tale of the type Cast of characters............. 4 Feature................. 4 Opentype features................. 4 Colophon.............. 4

12 pt

2

The town: Antwerpen 51°13'11"n 04°24'12"e

River Scaldis (now Scheldt) 360 kilometres (217 miles)

from all corners of the world were drawn there, seeking their fortune or just a simple livelihood. People of all kinds – young

24 pt

16 pt

Belgica c.51 bc – 5th century

E

vil arrived in the form of Druon Antigoon. Appearing from nowhere, he was a heartless, stinking mountain of a man who towered over every market stall and house in the town. His every step shook buildings to their very foundations. When he boarded a ship, the vessel would lurch to one side. When he raised his huge arms, women, children and street entertainers would lose consciousness.

¶ He arrived one icy winter’s morning, battering down the doors of the old castle, dismembering the guards and council members with his bare hands, and roaring from the ramparts that the town and all its people were now under his command. ¶ ‘What does he want from us?’ asked the townsfolk. They soon had their answer.

Antigoon declared that each merchant ship passing through on the river should pay the monstrous toll of half of its stock – booty he would keep for himself. ¶ Antigoon’s greed and cruelty knew no bounds. Any captain who refused to hand over his cargo had to fight the ogre for safe passage. The outcome was always the same.

Every time, the defiant commander would be beaten to a pulp on the quayside. And every time, as a warning to other rebels, the giant would hack off his opponent’s hand and hurl it into the river, to the horror of the watching crowd. ¶ Many miles away, word of Antigoon’s brutality reached the ears of one Silvius Brabo, a young but much-respected Roman centurion. Appalled by the tales he heard and determined to cut the colossus down to size, Silvius consulted an oracle on how to find him. ¶ The oracle said, ‘Let the Swan be your guide’. Brabo took his sword, shield and stallion and set off, following the white swan that had swooped overhead as soon as he left his town. ¶ For days he travelled. The stories he heard on his way of Antigoon’s tyranny only stiffened his resolve. Finally, still a mile away across the flat fields, he could see, hear and smell the giant for himself.

Brabo and the giant Antigoon: A tale of the hero of Antwerp

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o

o

boil

blood

Brabo’s

made

Antigoon of

sight

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130 pt 90 pt 50 pt 40 pt 32 pt 28 pt 24 pt 20 pt 16 pt

First edition, 2015

24 pt

Our brave hero Brabo battles the dastardly giant Antigoon

a: 1,340 pt

Parts of a book Half title Frontispiece Title page Dedication Imprint Colophon Contents Acknowledgements Foreword Preface Introduction Chapter openings Text Quotations Captions Folios Running heads Footnotes Appendices Glossary Biographies Bibliographies Index

Onze dappere held Brabo vecht tegen de lafhartige reus Antigoon

Eloquent [el-uh-kwuh nt] adjective Having a skilful way with words 1 characterised by fluency and persuasiveness

B

B: 170 pt †: 72 pt

12 pt

ac t t wo, s c e n e o n e In which our hero confronts the odious ogre…

12 pt

Antigoon is at the castle gates. Brabo enters slowly on horseback, dismounts, takes a deep breath and looks up at the giant.

11pt

Brabo: My name is Brabo. And I come with one request: that you leave these people in peace and fresh air, and be gone forever!

Antigoon: [Laughing] Be gone? Ha! Never! I’m just making myself at home! [More menacingly, stooping down, spitting out his words] But you, my friend, you’d better get yourself back to wherever you came from, or I’ll decorate this miserable fort with your innards!

Brabo:

{Draws sword} You’ll have to catch me first… Mankygoon!

Antigoon: [Met donderende stem] Wie ben jij?

Brabo:

ijn naam is Brabo. En ik ben gekomen met maar een M verzoek, namelijk, laat deze mensen in vrede leven en verdwijn voor eeuwig uit hun leven!

Antigoon: [Lachend] Verdwijnen? Ha! Nooit! Ik begin me net thuis te voelen [driegend naar beneden buigend, spreekend met afgemeten zinnen] Jij mijn vriend, kan beter teruggaan naar waar jij vandaan komt of anders versier ik dit waardeloze fort met jouw darmen!

Brabo:

12 pt

10 pt

{ Zijn zwaard trekkend} Eerst zal je me te pakken moeten krijgen… Mankygoon!

Antigoon: [Vigorosamente] Quem é você?

Brabo:

©fontsmith

3 visibly or vividly expressive, as of an emotion 4 skilled in fluent, forceful, and appropriate speech

†

Antigoon: [Booming] Who are you?

Quotation marks; Aanhalingstekens; Guillemets (m pl); Gänsefüßchen (n sing pl)

2 expressing yourself readily, clearly and effectively

M eu nome é Brabo. E eu venho com um pedido a fazer: que você deixe essas pessoas em paz e respirando ar fresco, e suma daqui para sempre!

Antigoon: [Rindo] Sumir? Ha! Nunca! Estou me sentindo em casa!

[Mais ameaçadoramente, abaixando-se e cuspindo palavras] Mas você, meu amigo, é melhor você retornar para o lugar de onde você veio, ou vou decorar esse forte miserável com suas entranhas!

Brabo:

{Empunhando sua espada} Você terá que me apanhar antes…

fig. 1 Brabo fights the ferocious giant.

chapter three Where our hero wins the day A n t i g o o n ’ s r oa r s h o o k t h e g r o u n d. Cattle fled and townsfolk flocked to witness the clash (from a safe distance). The giant swung his boulder-like fists in fury, missing Brabo by inches – a single blow would surely have killed him. The barrage continued.

Anything he could lay his hands on, Antigoon rained down on Brabo: the castle doors, a fully-grown oak tree, and great slabs of dung the cows had left in the fields. ¶ The gods heard of the battle and watched from above. It so happened that, as a nephew of Gaius Julius Caesar, Brabo was descended from Jupiter. And it was the god that saved the centurion’s skin on several occasions, pulling Brabo out of harm’s way. ¶ The bout continued on to a second day, then a third, and the strength of both combatants waned. But when the giant took a desperate, exhausted swing at the soldier and toppled over, Brabo was able – just – to raise his sword for one last time and deal a fatal blow, before cutting off the giant’s humongous hand and throwing it into the gushing river.

e p i l o gu e In which everyone lives happily ever after And so it was that the evil ogre, Druon Antigoon, was vanquished. Silvius Brabo was declared the town’s saviour. Its citizens could breathe easily once again. The castle doors were rehinged, a new oak tree planted and the cow dung returned to the field. A lavish feast was held in Brabo’s honour, at which he met a duke’s daughter of great beauty, who would become his bride. ¶ He made the town his new home, as did the swan that guided him there. The town, famous for the throwing of hands (‘hand-werpen’ in the local tongue), would become known as Antwerpen*, and the province around it, Brabant, took its name from its new duke and eternal hero, Silvius Brabo.‡

Storytellers Raconteurs Narrators Fabulists Authors Bards Novelists Romancers Chroniclers Anecdotists Poets Lyricists Dramatists Teller of tales Spinners of yarns

The End

7 pt

* Scientists tend to take issue with some – well, all – elements of this story. They claim that Antwerp’s name has nothing to do with handthrowing, but is somehow connected with the Latin for ‘a piece of land in front’, ante verpia, referring to land created by the River Scheldt’s change of course in the 7th century. Which all sounds rather far-fetched to us, frankly.

A specimen of the typeface FS Brabo

‡ In fact, we know this story to be true. We can bring it to you thanks to a local farmer who watched, day and night, as the pair did battle.

He told the whole tale to his son, who told his son, and he his… until my father told it to me (several times over).

3

An audacious undertaking F E AT U R E

Page 4

96 pt

CAST OF CHARACTERS (In order of appearance) The Romans

12 pt (Cicero)* & 6 pt (Nonpareille)*

UPPERCASE

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Michael Evamy talks to Fernando Mello

14 pt (St. Augustin)*

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Gobbledygook. Codswallop. Poppycock. It’s not often that a typeface comes along whose way with words can make any old rubbish worth reading. A font that can add poetry to the plainest prose, and tempt us to tackle text in even the most unfamiliar tongue.

FS Brabo is good with words in any language. It is little wonder that the designer behind it is a Brazilian working in the UK who was inspired by his studies in Belgium under a Dutchman. ¶ Fernando Mello had been part of the Fontsmith team in London for four years, helping to craft a number of successful commercial fonts and honing his skills as a designer. Then his calling came. ‘All of a sudden, it just felt like it was time for me to design a beautiful, functional, serifed text font for books – something I’d always dreamed of doing, to reflect my admiration for typefaces such as Galliard and Sabon.’ ¶ Originally from São Paulo, Brazil, with a background in architecture and illustration, Fernando came to the UK in 2006 to take up a place on the University of Reading’s MA Typeface Design course. It was while he was studying there that he made the pilgrimage to the hallowed Plantin-Moretus Museum in Antwerp, Belgium – a shrine to book design and typography in the perfectly preserved home and workshop of the 16th century printers, Christophe Plantin and his son-in-law, Jan Moretus. The museum, a UNESCO World Heritage Site, houses the two oldest surviving printing presses in the world, and a priceless archive of typographical and artistic material. ¶ ‘The museum completely fascinated me,’ says Fernando. Several years later, when the opportunity arose to study at the museum on the eight-month, part-time Expert-class Type design course run by Frank Blokland at the Plantin Institute for Typography, he jumped at the chance. He wasn’t deterred by the wearying prospect of making the journey to and from Antwerp for a day of teaching every two or three weeks while remaining on the team at Fontsmith. ¶ Over those eight months, from October 2012 to April 2013, his classical serifed font began to emerge. It would take another two years for Fernando to complete his work on the typeface, first in the Fontsmith studio and, finally, in Brazil. Its place of origin – and long, taxing resolution – led to the name: Brabo, after the Roman hero of legend who battled for days to liberate Antwerp from the tyranny of the evil giant, Druon Antigoon.

10 pt (left) (Petit Romain)* 16 pt (below) (Gros Texte)*

¶ Fernando’s starting point was a genre of 16th century typefaces that he encountered in the Plantin-Moretus Museum, inspired by broad nib calligraphy. Visible in Brabo’s proportions is the influence of punchcutters such as Claude Garamond, Robert Granjon and others, and the book-oriented class of typefaces known as garaldes (a portmanteau of Garamond and Aldus [Manutius]), which display finer proportions than the earlier humanist faces. ¶ But, as Fernando is keen to stress, this is very much a personal interpretation of a garalde – a contemporary typeface family designed to bring a beautifully bookish personality to hardworking modern applications. ‘It doesn’t intend to be a revival or a mere reproduction of a classic design. It brings some freshness and authenticity to these models – a personal touch and tone of voice, which I like to think of as the Fontsmith touch.’

Come Quickly, Brabo!

Come Quickly, Brabo!

Swashes – stylistic alternatives

Come Quickly, Brabo!

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COLOPHON

— Concept & design The Counter Press

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“

It doesn’t intend to be a revival or a mere reproduction of a classic design”

— Copy writing Michael Evamy — Print & finishing CPI Colour

Ligatures off and on

The fjord raft kerfuffle The fjord raft kerfuffle The fjord raft kerfuffle The fjord raft kerfuffle Discretionary Ligatures off and on

Act 1: His first speech Act 1: His first speech Act 1: His first speech Act 1: His first speech Ligatures – stylistic alternatives

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­­— Paper Cyclus Offset 80gsm — Envelope Cyclus Offset 250gsm

28 pt (Petit Canon)*

— Format Based on the old Belgian paper size ‘Grand Jesus’, in use up until the adoption of the ISO standard in 1924.

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9 pt (Gaillarde)*

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36 pt (Trismegiste)*

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Bold and Bold Italic

AaBbCcDdEe AaBbCcDdEe ¶ The contrast in stroke width in Brabo, not as pronounced as in typical 16th century fonts, allied to the presence of generous counters, gives the family a strong, sturdy, affable character in body text.

Extravagant ligatures add scholarly flourishes. ‘The serifs were also generally designed in a slightly chunkier, less delicate way than the ones found in garaldes,’ says Fernando, ‘and they usually present sharp cuts and squared edges which make them quite crisp at text sizes.’ ¶ Brabo’s much more cursive italics take the air of erudition up a notch with a lyrical collection of decorative capitals, swashes and ligatures, for embellishing or adding emphasis to display text or titles. ¶ So, welcome FS Brabo, a four-weight typeface from Fontsmith whose way with words makes beautiful things of not just books and magazines, but also newspapers, signage and logotypes. 

ACCEN TS

SELEC TED ACCEN TED UPPERCASE

Regular and Italic

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A B C D E F G H J K L M N P Q Q Q R S T U V W X Y Z £ a c d e e g h m n r ſ t t u z 8 pt (Petit Texte)*

S TA N DA R D L I G AT U R E S

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* Names in brackets on this page are the old French pre-point type sizes. These are set in 7pt or ‘Mignonne’

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Default Figures (Proportional Old Style) and Tabular Old Style Figures

The toll is £1,296 The toll is £1,296 The toll is £3,511 Proportional Lining Figures and Tabular Lining Figures

The toll is £1,296 The toll is £1,296 The toll is £3,511 Fractions off and on

Antigoon wanted 1/3 Antigoon wanted 1/3 Fon tsm i t h specialise in creating high quality fonts for the creative industry and their clients. Our design and production of bespoke typefaces for use in corporate identity is extensive. We work closely with our clients to help create a strong typographic identity.

&& 2012–2015

AA Fontsmith 26 – 27 Great Sutton Street London ec1v 0ds info@fontsmith.com +44 (0)20 7490 9380 www.fontsmith.com

SELEC TED ACCEN TED LOWERCASE

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ÀÁÅǺĄÆÇĈČĐËĒĠĤĦĮĴĶŁĽĻĿÑŐØǾŒŦŬŊÐÞ S U B S C R I P T, S U P E R S C R I P T & F R A C T I O N S

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*†‡§¶ ™ & & № ¤ ¥¥ $$¢ Production L A N G UA G E S U P P O R T

9 pt (Gaillarde)* & 6 pt (Nonpareille)*

FS Brabo supports over 120 Latin-based languages, including: Afrikaans, Albanian, Basque, Breton, Catalan, Czech, Danish, Dutch, English, Finnish, Flemish, French, German, Icelandic, Irish, Italian, Latvian, Norwegian, Polish, Portuguese, Romanian, Spanish, Swedish & Welsh.

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