Eclectic FS Siena is a typeface with history, and not just in the sense of having its origins in classical Roman lettering. Fontsmith founder Jason Smith first committed it to tracing paper while still at college, instinctively redrawing letterforms based on Hermann Zapf’s Optima according to ‘what felt right’. When Krista Radoeva took up the challenge to edit and extend the typeface, she and Jason were determined to preserve its subtly nonconformist and eclectic spirit. Like a great dish, there are individual components throughout the character set that all add flavour, and need to be balanced in order to work together. The smooth connection of the ‘h’ ‘m’ ‘n’ and ‘r’ contrasts with the corners of the ‘b’ and ‘p’. The instantly recognisable double-storey ‘a’ – the starting point of the design – contrasts with the single-storey ‘g’ and the more cursive ‘y’. And only certain characters – ‘k’, ‘w’, ‘v’ and ‘x’ in the lowercase and ‘K’, ‘V’, ‘W’, ‘X’ and ‘Y’ in the caps – have curved strokes. Transitional FS Siena is a contrasted sans-serif typeface, blending classical elegance and modern simplicity. Its construction and proportions are descended from classical broad-nib calligraphy and humanist typefaces, with a high contrast between the thick and thin strokes. The angle of the contrast, though, is vertical, more in the character of pointed-nib calligraphy and modernist typefaces. This vertical stress helps to give FS Siena a strong, cultured presence on the page. Idiosyncratic italics The italics for FS Siena were developed by Krista to complement the roman upper and lower-case alphabets first drawn by Jason. Many of the letterforms are built differently to their roman counterparts: there’s a single-tier ‘a’, a looped ‘k’ and connections more towards the middle of stems, such as in the ‘m’, ‘n’ and ‘u’. These distinctions, along with generally much narrower forms than the roman, give the italics extra emphasis within body copy, where the two are side-by-side. In editorial, especially, the combination can be powerful. To cap it all… In his original draft of the typeface, Jason found inspiration in Roman square capitals of the kind most famously found on Trajan’s Column in Rome. In keeping with those ancient inscriptions, he intended the capitals of FS Siena to also work in all-upper-case text, in logotypes for luxury consumer brands and property developments, for example. A little added space between the upper-case letters lets the capitals maintain their poise in a caps-only setting, while still allowing them to work alongside the lower-case letterforms. The caps-only setting also triggers a feature called case punctuation, which adapts hyphens, brackets and other punctuation to complement the all-caps text.

Hamptons BF is a beautiful, elegant sans serif with dramatic individuality. A font that steps out in Art Deco style. As a design movement Art Deco came into prominence during the 1920s and 30s when forms were typically sleek, symmetrical, geometric or highly stylized. Today the influence of this enduring style can be clearly seen in architecture, industrial design, fashion, art, graphic design, and yes, even type design. Art Deco style exemplifies luxury, glamour and modernity. I believe Hamptons BF captures something of that retro look in a nod to the past without ever looking dated, all the while retaining a contemporary flair. Named after the well-known New York resorts synonymous with style and elegance, this gothic or sans serif type is based upon University Roman, an early 1970s serif design which in turn was influenced by yet another serif design called Forum Flair (late 1960s); and that in turn owes its pedigree to the late 1930s’ Stunt Roman, which is the original source of inspiration for all of these. Quite a family tree! There’s dynamic interplay between certain wide, full-round letters such as C, D, G, O, P, Q, R, S and narrow ones like A, E, F, H, K, L, M, N, U, etc. This contrast repeats throughout certain lower case letters and serves to create a unique look of distinction. Light and Regular weights communicate a romantic, feminine appeal while the Bold offers a complementary emphasis. The font is somewhat versatile as in addition to its primary purpose for display, Hamptons BF also succeeds in settings containing short blocks of large text. It’s right at home in a variety of typographic environments: branding, packaging, signage logos, magazine headlines, invitations, menus, trendy cafes and more. Among the included OpenType features are Stylistic Alternates, Automatic Ligatures and Fractions. There is extended language support for Western, Central and Eastern Europe and Turkish.