This humanistic sans serif design was inspired by a conversation that David Quay had with renowned type designer Hans Meyer, during ATypI in Paris, 1989. Meyer revealed that Sabon, designed by Jan Tschichold, was the inspiration behind his Syntax font. This approach formed the basis for the design development of The Foundry's very first sans serif typeface family; the inspiration for Foundry Sans comes from Stempel Garamond. Foundry Sans was the second typeface to be released for The Foundry typeface library in 1990.

In mid 2001, P22 was approached by a Daniel Garrison, a Classics scholar at Northwestern University about possibly digitizing a long lost "Garamond" typeface. This font was used by Johannes Herbst (a.k.a. Ioannes Oporinus) in 1543 to publish Andreas Vesalius' "On the Fabric of the Human Body" (De humani corporis fabrica) in Basel. The story of the development of this font takes a few twists and almost becomes forgotten itself over time.Forteen years later it is available to the public.