Fniqiya Type
July 5, 2007
Fnikiya is an all Caps Display font based on the ancient Phoenician alphabet. The font is originally created for Alarm Editions publishing house in Beirut. The font will be used in their next book publishing “La Phénicie”. (La Phénicie , Tatiana Baher & Norica-Daniela El-Hallak, Illustations drawn by Lebanese children, Alarm Editions 2007)
“La Phénicie” is a children book about the history of the Phoenicians. The primarily font was directly based on the Phoenician alphabet but it was illegible for children. Due to this fact, I decided to create three fonts: Fnikiya One, Fnikiya Two and Fnikiya Three. Fnikiya One is the closest to the original Phoenician alphabet, while Fnikiya Three is the furthest. After several legibility tests, Fnikiya Two was chosen for the titles of the book.
Notice the differences between the three fonts. For info about the font please visit my blog. Fnikiya type can be used in projects and publications about Phoenician History or Alphabet. The font is free for use. Contact me for a free sample.
Bellow are pictures of the original Phoenician Alphabet:
And here is some of closeups on my type used in the titles of the book:
Entry Filed under: Pascal Zoghbi, Type, Type Pics, experimental type. .
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1.
Hussein | July 12, 2007 at 9:17 am
nice study..
pascal: are you the one who designed the kuwaiti newspaper “aljareeda” typeface of the headlines? i try to google it then i found something here mentioning your name: http://cg.scs.carleton.ca/~luc/typenews.html
anyway, i just want to say it was a great font, although i thought it at the first look one of al-mohtaraf type projects..
thanking you..
2.
pascal Zoghbi | July 13, 2007 at 9:22 am
Hello Hussein
i was working on this project and named the font accordingly, but later i stopped work on it. but i kept the name and developed to type for another newspaper. i think i will change the name once the type is finalized for the new newspaper.
i was working on the display type for Al Jareeda type with BrandCentral. but then they took another arabic font which is already finalized due to the time constraints and the close deadline. I think the font used now in Al Jareeda newspaper is done by Mr. Jala. but i do not know the name of the font or from where did it originate.
cheers
pascal
3.
Hussein | July 15, 2007 at 11:02 am
wow! amazing reply.. really many thanx to your great efforts.. as i said before i thought it the “madad” font of al al-mohtaraf.. any way, the design of the magazine and the heading font were really great.. for me i consider it the best-designed newspaper in the arab world..
once you asked me about my work or portfolio.. and i’m so lazy really to do publish them online!! but thanks to my colleague wael who post something about my cool type, ok! at least its cool for me! ;)
http://sha3teely.com/?p=546
thank you pascal
4.
hilda M. | July 27, 2007 at 6:37 am
keep it up PAscal! intersesting derivation from the phoenician letters (especially Finikya One). A similar project was assigned in my Intro to Typography class at AUST (taught by Mayda Freije). it was to write our name in Phoenician letters. and since not all equivalent letters are found in the alphabet, we had to design new letters to add to the alphabet!
there’s something mystical about working on a font that is related to such an ancient period. just think how important it is to revive it! since we are lebanese, we instantly inherit the phoenician pride, and we kind of take it for granted. therefore this is more significant and would be of a larger impact on the rest of the world.
you revived history! Salut!
5.
Clement | April 4, 2008 at 7:24 am
Hey Pascal, it was nice seeing you how you were doing the letter designs from scratch. Yep! I saw it all. Now i can say that I have the chance to have worked in a project in which you put your own touch in. It is a very nice book and I liked doing it, though it was a bit difficult to combine Russian and Romanian point of views about Phoenicia. But! nice work in the end.
6.
Clement | April 4, 2008 at 7:27 am
And one more thing! Alarm is the best publishing house because I have worked there and have seen the good, refined and well studied work for books and else. There was the good experience
7.
superj707 | April 10, 2009 at 1:23 am
I will keep this short .. how can I get Fnikiya type version III ?
thanks in advance
8.
Mohammed Riyad | June 19, 2009 at 4:21 pm
Please email me, i have a project and would like you views on the matter.
Regards,
Mohammed
CD