Developed for screen For not the first time, Fontsmith was commissioned to develop a font for one of the UK’s terrestrial TV channels. The product was a clearly-defined three-weight family. When italics were added, it became FS Matthew, a clean, stylish, structured sans serif with swooping, open curves and a bright, lively personality. Southbank Inspiration for many of the forms of FS Matthew came from details found within the modernist buildings and architecture of London’s Southbank, such as the Royal Festival Hall. During the font’s gestation, Jason had found himself at London Studios, a TV studio on Southbank, and a wander around the neighbouring arts buildings proved thought-provoking. The result was a font with a very British character: solid forms that provide the platform for innovation and distinctiveness. Feelgood efficiency FS Matthew’s trademark is efficiency with a feelgood factor: disciplined enough for corporate identities, websites and signing systems, and colourful enough for logotypes and advertising. Its versatility and excellent legibility are achieved via some unexpected details: the reaching curves of the “g” and “y”; the simple shape of the “u”; an off-kilter “k”; generous counters; and a slightly condensed aspect that makes FS Matthew a space-saver in text or title sizes.

Elegant and round Having harboured a desire for a rounded font within the Fontsmith library for some time, Phil Garnham recognised that FS Emeric offered the perfect skeleton around which to design it. Most new rounded fonts rely on scripts or other in-app automation to form their characters. For all their warmth and approachability, they too often conjure images of jelly sweets and sausages. Not so FS Aldrin, where every curve and transition has been crafted by hand, giving a distinctive look and elegant feel. Design highlights FS Aldrin enjoys wide-open ‘lunar’ counters and soft, tube-like terminals. These improve legibility, especially on backlit signage and screens. The open proportions and circular strokes are juxtaposed against a more serious technical aspect that exists within each counter shape. The lighter weights feel precise and efficient, perfect for notes on blueprints or technical drawings. The heavy weights are equally crafted but more playful by their rotund nature, and are perfect for strong headlines or packaging projects. UI icons A suite of 268 icons complement the typeface beautifully and extend the design language in all directions. They cover a range of commonly used applications and themes ranging from ecommerce to weather, and also serve as a solid starting point for a bespoke brand icon set or UI. In addition, born of FS Aldrin’s astronomical theme and playful nature is a special collection of space-themed icons, including rockets, shuttles and lunar modules (hint: if you type the word BUZZ with ligatures enabled, an astronaut appears). Earth to Buzz Buzz Aldrin was the pilot of Apollo 11’s lunar module, the one that put man on The Moon for the very first time. Early on in the project’s life, FS Aldrin emerged as the ideal hook on which to hang the font’s space helmet (hardly surprising given Phil’s fascination with space travel and astronomy). An approach was made to Buzz’s management to see if he would sanction the association. Not only was the great man himself happy to see his name on a typeface, he also asked to use it in his upcoming keynote talks, book launches and online projects.

Worldly Even though it’s a new arrival, FS Brabo has seen the world. Designed by a Brazilian working in London and studying in Belgium under a Dutchman, it’s certainly well-travelled. And it was inspired by the extraordinary archive of early book typefaces at the world-renowned Plantin-Moretus Museum in Antwerp, while Fernando Mello was attending Frank Blokland’s Expert class Type Design course at the Plantin Institute of Typography. It was there that Fernando became engrossed in the collection of early metal type, matrices, punches and type samples by figures such as Garamond and Granjon. So much so that he took on the mighty task of developing ‘a beautiful, functional, serifed text font’ of his own. Heroic FS Brabo’s journey from sketch to font family took an epic three years, starting in Antwerp, continuing at Fontsmith in London, and reaching its conclusion back in Fernando’s home city of São Paulo. No wonder Fernando was reminded of another titanic face-off: that of Antwerp’s Roman hero of legend, Silvius Brabo, and the evil ogre, Antigoon. Brabo came to the town’s rescue after the tyrannical giant had been charging ships’ captains extortionate taxes and chopping off the hands of those who refused to pay up. Having finally downed Antigoon after a long and terrible duel, Brabo cut off the giant’s own hand and threw it into the river Scheldt, unwittingly giving the town its name: the Dutch for ‘hand-throw’ is hand werpen. What better way for Fernando to name his literary typeface than after the hero of Antwerp’s oldest tale? The garalde factor FS Brabo is not a revival, but a very much a contemporary, personal interpretation of a garalde – a class of typeface originating in the 16th century that includes Bembo, Garamond and Plantin, with characteristically rounded serifs and moderate contrast between strokes. Brabo’s ‘ct’ and ‘st’ ligatures, upper-case italic swashes and contextual ending ligatures – ‘as’, ‘is’, ‘us’ – all preserve the beauty and character of traditional typefaces, but its serifs are chunkier than a garalde. Their sharp cuts and squared edges give them a crispness at text sizes, helping to bring a beautifully bookish personality to hardworking modern applications. A workhorse with pedigree It may give the appearance of a simple, four-weight typeface, but FS Brabo has hidden depths beneath its simplicity and beauty. OpenType features such as cap italic swashes, contextual ending swashes – programmed only to appear at the end of words – and stylistic alternatives make this a complete and well-equipped typeface. Comprehensive testing was carried out at text and display sizes, too, to prevent counters from filling in. All of which makes FS Brabo a very modern take on a traditional workhorse serif typeface: colourful and versatile enough to adorn not just editorial projects but also signage, advertising and logotypes.

Beyond broadcast Like Truman Burbank, the star of The Truman Show, FS Truman was born for TV. You’ll know it from Sky One’s on-screen trails and announcements, but it’s just as at home in other media. Its starting point was the skeleton of a highly legible, space-saving, corporate font with some of FS Dillon’s geometric discipline built in. Its distinctive tone of voice and “ownability” are in its boxy but friendly shapes, and characters with hybrid features. FS Truman’s weights and widths were honed to work at TV screen resolutions. A face for TV it may have been, but this is a font that works on every level, on screen, in print, in headlines, in listings, in longer text, in tight corners and open spaces. The space-saver Compact, condensed but crystal clear, FS Truman comes into its own where a lot needs to be said in not a lot of space. Its letter spacing allows the type room to breathe, even at small sizes, while its fulsome x-height and diminutive descenders pave the way for tighter leading. A natural for headlines and titles over three or four lines. “Hybrid” features With every font, Fontsmith look for crafty new ways to imbue letterforms with a consistent character. The idea with FS Truman was to introduce “hybrid” features. In open letters such as “c” and “s”, for example, the top terminals have straight, vertical cuts while their lower terminals have a more angular, cursive finish. Boxy, spacious forms with unusual curves and angles create not just highly legible and efficient letters but strongly distinctive ones, too.

Kangaroo FS Joey was the offspring of a project with Rudd Studio to develop a logotype for an online streaming TV service, in 2008. While under wraps, the secret project was code-named Kangaroo. The logotype led to a second project, to design a corporate typeface for the service. It was the first big project Fernando Mello had worked on with Jason Smith. “Like any designer who just joined a team, I was very excited about it, drawing and sketching lots of ideas. I remember Jason and I experimenting with lots of possibilities, for both the logo and the typeface.” Online As the font for a Spotify-style, internet-based service, FS Joey needed to be highly legible on-screen, including at very small sizes. There had to be a range of weights, and they’d have to work well in print, too. It was also important that it felt corporate, not too quirky, while still having a strong character of its own. Quirkiest “We designed three weights specifically for use on the Web,” says Jason Smith. “There was the usual fight between me and my team. I wanted at least one identifiable letter that was a quirk. As always I went straight for the lowercase ‘g’, and it was drawn numerous times with lots of variation. I got the quirkiest one accepted by the client.” But, later in 2009, the Competition Commission blocked Project Kangaroo, and Fontsmith were left with a couple of weights of an as yet unused font. From Kangaroo, Joey was born. A favourite “Straight away, people started to notice the typeface,” says Jason. “I can take the credit for pushing the art direction and standing up for the quirks. But it was Fernando who was the key to pulling it all together and adding his own distinct flavour. Now it’s one of my favourite designs in our library.” Fresh and friendly, geometric and energetic, Joey is available in five weights, all with italics, all finely-tuned for both screen and print.

Handy Andy Andy Lethbridge had only just completed his graphic design BA at the University of Portsmouth when he was spotted by Jason, who’d seen Andy’s exquisite hand lettering at his degree show and on Instagram. Keen to push the handwritten theme further, having recently launched a digitally-created, chalky script font (FS Sammy), Jason offered Andy a job and the chance to develop a suite of more stylised, truly hand-drawn fonts. Andy duly got out his pads, pencils and pens, and started experimenting with styles and textures. Magic followed. Imperfection perfected Most ‘handwritten’ typefaces are created entirely digitally. Not FS Shepton. From the start, the intention was to create a collection of alphabets of similar character but different texture and style – 100% hand-drawn and purposely imperfect, with the kind of inconsistent, organic shapes and textures of market stall signs, dashed off in chalk or paint. FS Shepton Regular, drawn with a wet brush pen, is solid with a rough outer edge and a casual but controlled feel. The dry brush used to create FS Shepton Light gives it more inner texture and a more formal, slanted, calligraphic style. FS Shepton Bold, drawn using a wider, looser dry brush pen, has a woody grain in the middle of its broad strokes and greater solidity where the brush moves more slowly. Fresh as a daisy Think of FS Shepton not as a family of three weights of the same font so much as a collection of three fonts penned by the same author. All of them – the light, regular and bold – were created independently as display fonts that offer something different to labelling, packaging, point-of-sale and advertising. Lovingly crafted by hand, they’re a good match for products and settings that share the same artisinal qualities: organic foods, drinks and healthcare products, as well as premium chocolate, coffee and condiments.

ZX Spectrum In 1982, a home computer came on the market that would launch the UK IT industry. The ZX Spectrum sold five million units and spawned thousands of software titles. It was the must-have gadget for every teen. FS Sinclair is inspired by the memory of Sir Clive Sinclair’s greatest creation: the experience of entering its clunky command codes and reading its simple, grid-placed type. Smart, switched-on, great in text and display, FS Sinclair is a modern grid-based font, drawn with the Spectrum in mind and brought to life by well thought-out design. Formula Having completed the font for Channel 4’s brand update, the Fontsmith team defined the formula for its next font: the creative essence of the C4 work but with more structural discipline, more rigid form and a little more seriousness. The new font wouldn’t look self-consciously retro but it would reference the past and, it was hoped, influence the future. Readability Like the ZX Spectrum, it took a while for the new font to do exactly what it was meant to do. Many of the early concepts by Phil Garnham and Jason Smith were too jagged – the result of an awareness of getting too close to existing fonts of the same ilk, such as Wim Crouwel’s Gridnik. Eventually, FS Sinclair evolved into a more readable, functional grid-based type design that answered Phil and Jason’s original, self-set brief. Idiosyncratic There’s a technological, systems feel to FS Sinclair but ultimately, humans are in charge. The lowercase “a”, “n”, “m” and “r” have clean-cut “ears”, and the square-ish design is softened by round joins on the inside of the letterforms. The idiosyncratic design of letters such as “g”, “j”, “k”, “v”, “w” and “y” bring the design up to date. This is a modular font with character, and a range of weights that allow varied application.

Changing nature of work FS Industrie is an extraordinarily versatile new type system, with 70 variants built around five different widths and seven different weights. Type in the future will be increasingly variable, and FS Industrie is specifically designed to address the changing needs of brands. As more of the things we make exist primarily in a digital space, so our need to create type that can adapt within that space grows. It is the spirit of variable design, adaptation and flexibility that drove us to create FS Industrie. A typeface for future work in a future world. FS Industrie is a response to the changing nature of type, for brands that are responding to the changing nature of work. Industrial style Stylistically, FS Industrie feels direct and simple without sacrificing its humanity. It takes inspiration from German fonts of the 1930s, with their roots in manufacturing and signage. A classic sense of functional utility combined with a progressive view of where type is heading. Expressions in width A fundamental challenge with variable type is to ensure that craft and precision is preserved at every interval. Each width and weight is drawn by hand, with subtle variations in terminals and angles as you progress through the system. This ensures each variant can play to its unique strengths, while also pairing perfectly with its siblings. From the closed terminals of the Condensed and the open terminals of the Extended. FS Industrie is a design system that maintains a practical, grounded and robust tone throughout every variable style. Variable nature The 70 styles offer a range of expression. Each width contrasts with the next to clearly define typographic roles in graphic layouts. Every glyph is crafted with adaptability and scalability in mind, creating a pliable design space for the user. The proportions of each letterform flex as weight scales up, stem weights increase as letter width broadens. These subtle design changes create an optically consistent visual impression.

The classic modernist FS Alvar grew out of a library of pure modular shapes gathered by Fontsmith’s master of the abstract starting point, Mr Phil Garnham. “It was a collection that just had to be explored and brought to life in a typographic voice. “We debated long and hard about this. It was big decision to make a shift away from the typefaces that people knew us for. And we didn’t want to compromise our reputation of well crafted typographic quality”. Modular forms A headline font that’s both graphic and functional, in the modernist tradition, FS Alvar focused Fontsmith’s eyes on the bigger issue of what makes a font show its age. “Looking at those fonts from the 1980s that were supposed to represent the ‘future’,” says Phil, “they looked so dated now. With Alvar, we weren’t concerned with creating future-thinking typography but with exploring form for form’s sake, and how that can evolve to create letterforms. Modular forms with a typographic eye.” Stencilled The concept for Alvar first materialised back in 2001 with some sketches Phil made while still at Middlesex University. Eight years later, something made him dig them out again. “There was something really nice about the proportions of that first design. Working on it again, I thought about it properly, but it still needed something to give it that edge. “Jason stood up in the studio and supplied the missing link: ‘Why don’t we make it stencilled?’ He didn’t mean in an obvious way, but by building a kind of architectural stencil into the form. It worked and the idea of using an architect’s name (Alvar Aalto) to describe the font felt perfect.” Featured in... The three weights of FS Alvar are made for standout headlines in advertising campaigns and magazines. Alvar has had a starring role in campaigns for brands from Nike to Amnesty International, as well as on CD covers, record labels and packaging.

Unconventional beauty FS Kim is bold and intriguing – exuberant and unmissable, but playing a supporting role when needed. This typeface shines brightest as a display font, and is perfect for applications across fashion, theatre, cultural projects and pretty much any brand that wants to make a statement. While FS Kim is dramatic, it’s incredibly versatile, too, and works to showcase content in a stylish, striking way. This font makes you look, and makes you curious – perfect for brands and publishers that relish unconventional beauty. A playful text version While FS Kim’s text version is more constrained than the display, the strength and playfulness remain. Modifications for the text version include larger x-heights, longer ascenders and descenders, wider proportions and spacing, longer and more defined serifs and a lower contrast. “The overall idea is that it’s not an optical size,” Radoeva explains. Text and display maintain a strong connection that mean they can be used together. A display with a twist The calligraphic starting point helped to create familiar forms, while a contemporary display feel is achieved through short wedge serifs, with bold touches added through the font’s exaggerated forms and details. FS Kim’s narrow proportions, short ascenders and descenders, and tighter spacing make the font suitably compact for display use. The overall aesthetic feels bold and sharp, but closer inspection reveals that all the corners are softened. Decorative inlines In an unusual twist, FS Kim’s display version was first drawn using a broad-nib pen to create familiar forms and elegance while still breaking from serif traditions and making it all about standout character. There are also two additional styles, based on the Regular and Black with inlines – in uppercase, figures and symbols. The inline brings an extra option for an even stronger, more decorative display use.

A creative context 2003. Fontsmith was sharing a small, cold, whitewashed studio space in Northburgh Street, Clerkenwell. But things were on the up following prestigious custom type commissions for The Post Office and E4. “Slab serifs were on the brink of another revival, we could feel it,” says Jason Smith. “All we wanted to do was have a play with these slabs, go as far as we could within what was acceptable and readable.” “It wasn’t initially clear what was happening,” recalls Phil Garnham. “We were becoming very influenced by our surroundings, outside the studio space. We absorbed the essence and the designer grime of where we were.” Process Jason began by drawing stems on-screen. “The key aspect of the font is the upward bend of the leading shoulder serif, the way it kind of ramps up and then plummets back down the stem. “The regular and light characters are quite narrow – great for text but the bold is quite wide and chunky – better for headlines. I think ‘y’ is quite different for a slab design. We call it the Fontsmith ‘y’.” Promotion Fontsmith were determined to get FS Clerkenwell noticed. To launch the font, Ian Whalley, a designer friend of Fontsmith, captured words heard on the streets of Clerkenwell, set them in the new font and crafted a small book of typographic conversations. It was a first for Fontsmith. “I think that’s part of why this font has been so successful,” says Phil. “It really does embody the spirit of the area, as a special place for design, arts and crafts. And designers love that.” Contemporary twist FS Clerkenwell, based on influences in and around this part of London with a rich tradition of printing and design, mixes tradition with creation. Old-fashioned values meet new-school trends. Its quirky, contemporary character lends an edge to headlines, logotypes and any large-size text.

FS Rosa is a free-spirited and optimistic serif typeface – reminiscent of those used on fanzines, film sequences and book covers of the 1970s, such as Cooper and Windsor, it has a laid-back nature with a touch of rebellion. It also reminds of type used in colourful protest graphics by nun-turned-designer Corita Kent, and its personality is akin with brands like Whole Foods - positive rather than preachy. While unconventional, it’s sensible enough to work perfectly for socially conscious brands, magazines, websites and campaigns that want a fairer and more responsible world. Hand-drawn digitally, FS Rosa is warm and open-minded – its irregular letterforms are rounded, with soft terminals, a large x-height and wide apertures. But it is also quirky and eclectic, with irregular shapes – its short ascenders and descenders have slanted serifs, its uppercase forms have unusually low crossbars and the letters are filled with oddities and surprises. The typeface looks to stand out against a sea of homogenous, geometric sans serifs, and celebrates beauty through imperfection. It comes in five weights of Thin, Light, Regular, Bold and Black. The heavier weights make an impact and are great for loud, headline statements. The Regular weight is functional, balanced and robust for text, and the lighter weights have an elegance and contemporary beauty. FS Rosa is eclectic yet with its soft roundness, also positive and progressive. Its name, inspired by the phrase “rose-tinted glasses”, reflects its optimism.

Rooted Rooted in 1960s Brit modernism and infused with a fresh, contemporary spirit, FS Elliot is a future-proof, workhorse sans serif, well-suited to any assignment. Open and harmonious, its clear, fluid shapes lend words a distinctive and optimistic bounce. Britishness FS Elliot came out of a desire to create something squarely in the British modernist tradition, drawing on influences such as Design Research Unit’s portfolio of type for famous British brands and products, and Margaret Calvert and Jock Kinneir’s work on the British road sign system. Nick Job took the openness and simplicity of that style and injected warmth and wide appeal, coming up with a highly practical, multi-purpose family of faces. Enduring appeal “The great thing about having an eye on the future,” says designer Nick Job, “is that most of it is unknown. It’s what encourages us to take risks. And it leaves an uncertainty which, I believe, gives the best work its enduring appeal.” FS Elliot is available in a Pro version with full language support and a full range of Roman, Cyrillic and Greek weights.

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.

A sign of something better When designer Stuart de Rozario surveyed the fonts used in signage on London’s public transport systems, he reached a dead end. They seemed staid, sterile, lacking in personality, and ill-suited to use by modern brands. He was pointed in another direction entirely. ‘The driving force behind my thoughts was to design something more current and fresh without compromising legibility and clarity. A font with both personality and function, that’s versatile and large and small sizes, and effortless to read, but which also says something new.’ Speed reading Late for a meeting and can’t find your way? Trying to catch a flight? Lost in a hospital? Reading signs is a different business to reading a book or a newspaper. Text on signs needs to be deciphered quickly and effortlessly. So the legibility criteria for signage letterforms are different to those for normal reading, too. Throughout FS Millbank’s uppercase and lowercase alphabets, characters have been given features for extra definition, including: wide ink traps on the A, K, M, V, W, X and Y; a serifed i, accentuated spurs on the a, d, l u; and different x-height shapes on the b, g, p and q. Distinctive forms and generous, open internal shapes all help the quick reading of sign text, and wide, open terminals and counters allow similar letter shapes to be distinguished easily when viewed at different angles. Running down a corridor, maybe... Positive/negative Standard type tends to glow on the kind of dark backgrounds often used for signage, and look heavier than its true weight. To correct the imbalance caused by this optical trick, special weights of the typeface have to be drawn for these ‘negative’, light-on-dark applications. These are lighter than their comparable positive weights to overcome the ‘glow’ effect. After extensive tests of the negative weights, at all sizes, we achieved the right optical balance. Glowing, glowing, gone. Icons This wouldn’t be a signage typeface without its own set of icons, or symbols, to help people find what they’re looking for. So, to sit alongside the positive and negative fonts, we’ve created a comprehensive set of 172 icons, covering a wide range of applications from transport and user interface to information and directional. Designed within the typeface capital height, they sit on the baseline and are spaced centrally.

Iconic Conjuring memories of chunky typefaces from the late-60s and early-70s, and named after the world’s greatest footballer of that and probably any other era, FS Pele is one of a set of Fontsmith fonts designed specifically for headlines and other prominent applications. “We wanted to create fonts that could be integral to the design of posters, album covers and magazines,” says Jason Smith. Welcome to FS Pele, iconic, like its namesake (though, perhaps, a little less nimble). Big Pele, little Pele There was only one Pele. But there are two sizes of FS Pele. FS Pele One, with the finer counters and details, adds considerable weight and style at large sizes, especially in big block headlines on posters. FS Pele Two’s thicker “slots” make it a better choice for smaller-sized text. A load of blocks FS Pele began as an exercise by Phil Garnham in turning squares into legible letters, via the least means necessary. The idea extended his ideas about logo-making, and the search for a stamp-like brand mark that lends authority, stability and instant identification. “The thought that the type was a 2D/3D jigsaw of slotted, architectural pieces was almost an after-thought. I wanted to create a strong, stacking, block aesthetic for the most contemporary poster design. “At the time there were a lot of designers creating their own versions of the same thing but I wanted to take the blocker forms to the next step, and infer a more legible text without sacrificing the idea.”

Timeless imperfection FS Meridian is a rhythmic geometric grotesque which takes inspiration from the precise yet imperfect nature of time. There are 24 hours in a day. 60 minutes in an hour. 60 seconds in a minute. Well, almost. The Earth’s orbit isn’t a perfect circle – and nor is the Earth itself. Each day varies a few dozen seconds and up to 16 minutes each year. Look closer and time is more flexible than we think. Geometry with a twist From a geometric base, FS Meridian’s rounded forms veer and extend, creating unexpected humanistic shapes – while the straight terminals remain reliably rigid. This combination of forms gives this grotesque sans serif a pleasingly dynamic rhythm, every time it’s read. Added quirks The unconventional character of rigid terminals and ink traps are balanced with emphasized extended forms to develop visual differentiation. Designed by Kristina Jandová, the complete family has been carefully crafted with distinguishing marks. Take a look at the cap ‘Q’ which comes with three alternative options. Deliciously loopy FS Meridian has a wide geometric, mono-liner appearance with humanistic elements. Quirky individual touches like the loopy expressive pound sign help the typeface to stand out. Available in five weights, FS Meridian is both timeless and timely, a distinctive font for all screens and surfaces.

Developer-friendly The studio has developed a wide array of weights for FS Untitled – 12 in all, in roman and italic – with the intention of meeting every on-screen need. All recognisably part of a family, each weight brings a different edge or personality to headline or body copy. There’s more. Type on screen has a tendency to fill in or blow so for each weight, there’s the choice of two marginally different versions, allowing designers and developers to go up or down a touch in weight. They’re free to use the font at any size on any background colour without fear of causing optical obstacles. And to make life even easier for developers, the 12 weight pairs have each been designated with a number from 100 (Thin) to 750 (Bold), corresponding to the system used to denote font weight in CSS code. Selecting a weight is always light work. Easy on the pixels ‘It’s a digital-first world,’ says Jason Smith, ‘and I wanted to make something that was really functional for digital brands’. FS Untitled was made for modern screens. Its shapes and proportions, x-height and cap height were modelled around the pixel grids of even low-resolution displays. So there are no angles in the A, V and W, just gently curving strokes that fit, not fight, with the pixels, and reduce the dependency on font hinting. Forms are simplified and modular – there are no spurs on the r or d, for example – and the space between the dot of the i and its stem is larger than usual. The result is a clearer, more legible typeface – functional but with bags of character. Screen beginnings FS Untitled got its start on the box. Its roots lie in Fontsmith’s creation of the typeface for Channel 4’s rebrand in 2005: the classic, quirky, edgy C4 headline font, with its rounded square shapes (inspired by the classic cartoon TV shape of a squidgy rectangle), and a toned-down version for use in text, captions and content graphics. The studio has built on the characteristics that made the original face so pixel-friendly: its blend of almost-flat horizontals and verticals with just enough openness and curve at the corners to keep the font looking friendly. The curves of the o, c and e are classic Fontsmith – typical of the dedication its designers puts into sculpting letterforms. Look out for… FS Untitled wouldn’t be a Fontsmith typeface if it didn’t have its quirks, some warranted, some wanton. There’s the rounded junction at the base of the E, for example, and the strong, solid contours of the punctuation marks and numerals. Notice, too, the distinctive, open shape of the A, V, W, X and Y, created by strokes that start off straight before curving into their diagonal path. Some would call the look bow-legged; we’d call it big-hearted.

A literary font FS Neruda takes its name from Chilean poet Pablo Neruda, described as “the greatest poet of the 20th century in any language”. As such, it’s a font that references the very best literary typeface traditions. Smart, sharp and classical, FS Neruda bridges the gap between the classical and the offbeat. This font started life in the world of newspapers and books and is the perfect storytelling typeface for savvy, inquiring readers whether in printed journals, hard news, short online missives or poetry. Idiosyncratic precision FS Neruda is clear and legible in body text, while also being a space-saver fitting in more characters on each line than the typefaces that inspired it. In larger sizes it becomes a different beast – livelier, quirkier, but no less sharp. This is a truly classic typeface designed with long text setting in mind, thanks to its large x-heights, and short ascenders and descenders. FS Neruda mixes suave, sharp confidence with a sense of fragility and quirkiness. It’s knowledgeable, informative and idiosyncratic; one for readers and enquiring minds. Subtle weight modifications The construction and details of the letterforms differ across each of the five weights, with each cut separately to evoke different flavours: Thin is typewriter-like, Light is classy, Regular is canonical, Bold is robust, Black is magazine-esque. FS Neruda also boasts a radiant italic companion, a wide set of small caps, lower and uppercase ligatures, case punctuation and spacing, four sets of figures, and some ageless typographic symbols such as manicules, fleurons and teardrop crosses. Suggestive simplicity “The key to success in the current type design landscape is to design a typeface which looks conventional at text sizes but has a few small, suggestive touches visible at bigger sizes that make it distinct,” says designer Pedro Arilla. “Another thing we wanted to achieve with this typeface is simplicity.” FS Neruda is available in ten carefully crafted styles: it’s designed to work perfectly at text sizes, but still glows as a display typeface.

Right now! FS Emeric reconciles a pair of seemingly opposing approaches: the systematic but chilly functionalism of early modernist typography, trapped in time, and a warmer, more emotional, more optimistic spirit. What Fontsmith created was something that marries precision with expression, geometry with movement, functionality with humanity. FS Emeric has a sharp, kinetic edge that cuts across design disciplines – graphic, fashion, product, automotive. It’s about what’s happening right now. Contemporary, optimistic, distinctive – a classic working sans serif. Appetite Discussions with some of Fontsmith’s design studio clients had revealed an appetite for a new kind of typeface that could express mid-century modernist principles in a fresh, contemporary voice. As he crafted the letterforms that would form FS Emeric, Phil Garnham was guided by two central ideas. First, there was Jan Tschichold’s contention that a good letter is “one that expresses itself, speaking with the utmost distinctiveness and clarity”. Second was a belief that a font can be personally expressive without compromising its functionality. These provided the fuel that drove the project to its conclusion. Posters To mark the launch of FS Emeric, Fontsmith asked 11 eminent design studios from around the world – the likes of Pentagram, Studio Dumbar, Bibliotheque, Non-Format and Build – to create a limited edition A1 poster. Each poster celebrated a different weight of FS Emeric, and just 50 of each were screen-printed by Dan Mather onto 175gsm Colorplan stock. “We gave away a randomly selected poster every time two or more weights of the FS Emeric were purchased,” says Phil Garnham. “They’ve now become somewhat of a collector’s item in their own right.” Superfamily In the spirit of Univers, the original font superfamily, FS Emeric now comprises 22 Roman and italic typefaces overall, making it one of the most versatile and functional modern fonts across all kinds of media, as well as one of the most distinctive.

Fs ornaments are unique modular sets of ornaments that are based on ancient patterns and medieval woodcuts. They work very well on modern layouts as well. What is more You can use them not only as ornaments but also as borders. This complexity gives you a carefully planned tool with high decorative qualities. All this depends only on your imagination! With it you can add a genuine touch of distinction to every sophisticated layout but use them carefully. The basic set is Fs ornament 1 while Fs ornament 2 is a distorted version of it. Fs ornament 3 is a woodcut underlying that could be applied underneath ornaments or without them. The usage is very simple-You type them as you normally type letters but instead you get those great decoration! Easy isn't it?

Slinky Chic, svelte and slinky, FS Sophie was inspired by and designed in partnership with ATTIK UK. With clean lines, simple, elegant curves and dynamic forms, it brings a feminine sophistication to text and headlines in publishing and advertising. Kinky FS Sophie’s engaging simplicity arises from its construction, using a modular set of core, rounded shapes and straight strokes, drawn and then repeated to create letterforms. An extra technical detail of occasional, short 45-degree diagonals adds a distinctive little kink to Sophie’s cool exterior. Alchemy By some kind of typographic alchemy, the combination of simple curves and lines with unexpected twists to the shapes of characters creates an unusually spirited and lively design in all three weights and their italic sets. Born for the spotlight, FS Sophie is a natural for big headlines, pull quotes and other high-profile text elements.

Elliptical The squareness of curves. That was the elliptical – in more than one sense – notion being explored in the making of FS Hackney. The squareness of curves and vertical terminals to create a gentle, soft sans serif, with a little bit of magic. A momentary thought – “It doesn’t have to be like this” – provided the spur to explore the verticals and skeletons of letterforms beyond conventional type design limits. A 12-month gestation period gave rise to a font with a larger-than-usual character set, including non-lining figures, small caps and superior and inferior numbers. It’s a collection that speaks confidently for itself. Assertive It was the Hackney carriage – the black London cab – that gave this font its name, not the north London neighbourhood. Solid, dependable, effective and built to last, FS Hackney was honed to perform in all conditions. Cool, compelling lines and a satisfying overall simplicity lend FS Hackney its assertive air. Assured, versatile and effective; just like a black cab (but without the grumbling). Machined Over a string of meetings, Jason Smith and FS Hackney designer Nick Job worked out how to infuse Nick’s sketched letterforms with Fontsmith’s familiar geniality. “Nick is very meticulous and produces very clean design work,” says Jason. “Hackney is ideal for branding as it’s very clear and its quirks are sensible ones, not odd ones, that don’t distract from the message.”

Trajan The original template for this one-weight, all-caps font was the inscription on Trajan’s Column, carved in AD 113 to celebrate the emperor Trajan’s victory in the Dacian Wars. College student Jason Smith copied the stone lettering from the cast on display in London’s Victoria & Albert Museum. In Roman times, the signmaker would paint letters onto stone with a wide brush for the stone mason to chisel out later. The signwriter would end each stroke with a flick of his brush, which the mason would also carve into the stone. Ecce (as they would have said in Rome): the serif was born. Hand-crafted “I first drew this typeface when I was 17,” says Jason. “I drew it with a very sharp 9H pencil on polydraw film. “Then, using a Rotring pen, I inked the letters in and scraped back the serifs so they were perfectly sharp. These letters were then reduced on a PMT camera. I’d designed my first typeface, although it wasn’t digitised till much later.” Digitised Years after Jason had drawn the original typeface, its transfer into digital form made further refinements necessary. The serifs and weights needed thickening slightly, creating a crisp, new version whose delicate elegance is best appreciated in larger sizes. A classically-inspired font, timeless and perfectly-proportioned, to reflect the refinement of premium brands.

Look @ Me is a cartoonish, fancy font. Its special features are the different eyes of the capital letters. The letters literally have faces and who knows, probably they may talk to you... ;)

Loving me is a new, fresh, sweet, and quirky handmade font. It’s ideal for branding and decorate your projects. Loving me font has a classy, and modern look that can be used for logos, branding, invitations, poster, advertising, stationery, wedding designs, social media posts, and much more! It is PUA encoded which means you can access all of the glyphs and swashes with ease!

Stich Me was inspired by embroidery patterns

Me & You is a fun and playful display font. Masterfully designed to become a true favorite, this font has the potential to bring each of your creative ideas to the highest level!

Casual, fun, handwriting font.

When your handwriting is that good... make a font! Now you can "Be Me." Give your text a little attitude with this fun font! This font is great for beauty, fashion, announcements and so much more! With a variety of swashes and fun symbols to create quirky posters. Regular & Bold fonts include: 1821 Glyphs Including Basic Latin, Latin-1 Supplement, Latin Extended-A, Latin Extended-B, Greek and Coptic, Cyrillic, Thai, Miscellaneous Symbols, Hiragana, Katakana, CJK Unified Ideographs, & More.

A professional-looking original typeface that can be used in resumes, curriculum vitae, business communications, and e-mails, this font contains the subliminal message "hire me" embedded into each of its characters. Use it in your resume, cover letter, and written communications with a potential boss, hiring manager, recruiter, Human Resources department, or anyone who may have a say in the decision to employ you. In this tough job market, you can use every advantage you can get. If you would like a high-quality TrueType font with a subliminal message of your own choosing, contact celebrityfontz@yahoo.com for more information.

Touch Me is a Script hand-drawn style typeface—designed by Coto Mendoza—resulting from polyrhythmic exploration, sign deconstruction and altered calligraphic contrast plays with watercolour brush. Coto has been using these experimental calligraphy techniques when creating the catchwords for Macarons, the Boho Family, Bikini Season Script and Matcha Script and so forth. Touch Me was inspired by a character in a story written by Coto while attending a literary workshop with Ina Groovie in Santiago de Chile. The character is a tribal girl who lives on an island in the Caribbean. She is heir of ancestral knowledge and possesses wild beauty, very passionate and sensual: intense, strong and free. These features are reflected in the polyrhythm of the typeface's curves: an irregular baseline, variable x-height, different lengths of initial and terminal strokes (that sometimes expand and sometimes shrink) and amount of brush pressure that generates changes in contrast within the characters. This way, when composing, signs with stroke contrast randomly alternate with monolinear ones and with signs of altered contrast, thanks to the typeface's OpenType programming. The family, with more than 3,000 glyphs, provides a number of alternative characters, swashes, ligatures, initial and terminal forms, in short, a vast ocean of choices! Touch Me is a spontaneous typeface with a fresh and unique personality. It is the perfect choice for short text in both print and digital formats. The family comes with a Script Regular version and a seductive Script Drop that you will enjoy a lot! The Extras set includes some catchwords, dingbats and ornaments that allows for endless composition options. The family also comes with a Caps version —designed by Luciano Vergara—in 2 styles: a funny and big-headed condensed Sans Grotesk display of inverted vertical proportion plus a Grotesk, neutral and slightly expressive Petite. Both versions, available in 6 weights, have been especially designed to create hierarchies when composing. This allows for balance between strokes of different weight when it comes to the Sans and Script fonts. Come and dare yourself! Touch Me! Thanks Alisa for sharing your amazing and beautiful picture with us.

Kiss Me script font is beautiful, a well designed for pretty girls. It’s handwritten font with a chic ballpoint strokes style that very suitable for romantic and passionate typography projects such as wedding, fashion logo, branding, or a signature text.

I have terrible and messy handwriting so I thought it would be a good idea to make a twisted version into an horrific font. In that respect I think it is quite successful, plus, Hallowe'en is nigh.

Keep Me is a brand new display font. Keep Me is perfectly suited for stationery, t-shirt, paper, print design, website header, photo frame, flyer, music cover, poster, image slider, and much more.