TYPE DESIGN INFORMATION PAGE last updated on Fri Dec 13 17:20:19 EST 2019

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ABOUT

Fontsmith [Jason Smith]

Jason Smith is the British corporate typeface designer who founded Fontsmith in 1997, where he retails his own designs from his office in London. He has created a typographic identity for the Post Office in the UK. Phil Garnham is one of the in-house type designers. Smith's fonts include FS Sinclair (2008, octagonal), Casey, Seat, Tractebel, PPP Healthcare, Powergen, Allied Irish Bank, UUnet, Channel 4, FS Ingrid, FS Rome, FS Albert (2002, a soft-cornered sans family), and Saudi Aramco. Of these, only FS Albert (2002), FS Rome and FS Ingrid can be purchased.

Newer fonts include Champions (Regular, Bold, Headline; done in 2009 for the UEAFA Champions League), FS Rufus (a slab serif by Mitja Miklavcic, Jason Smith and Emanuela Conidi), FS Sophie (2004, sans), FS Rigsby (2005, sans), FS Clerkenwell (2004, with Phil Garnham, slab serif), FS Pele (2007, ultra fat), FS Kitty (2007), FS Sinclair (2007, rounded octagonal), FS Alver (2007), FS Dillon (influenced by the Bauhaus quest for simplicity), FS Lola (2006, for Wechsler Ross&Portet; done with Phil Garnham, it is advertised by Fontsmith as a transgender type).

In 2007, he made the custom typeface Xerox Sans (+Condensed) as a modification of his FS Albert, to which Greek and Cyrillic alphabets were added as well. Mencap, a British company that works with people with a learning disability, asked Smith to design a font, FS Mencap (also known as FS Me), for the learning disabled---easy to read, yet elegant.

Custom typefaces include Colgate Ready (2014: for Colgate, covering Latin, Cyrillic, Eastern European, Devanagari and Thai), More4 (2005, for the Channel 4 Adult Entertainment channel), ITV (2006, for the ITV network), BBC ONE (2006, for the BBC), Post Office Sans (2003), FS Conrad (2009, a multiline display face). Vernon Adams and Fontsmith got into a quarrel about Vernon's Mako, which was submitted and rejected by Fontsmith, which published its own similar typeface Lurpak a few weeks later.

In 2012, Jason Smith and Fernando Mello co-designed the sans typeface family FS Truman at Fontsmith.

In 2015, Fontsmith published FS Shepton, FS Silas Sans, FS Silas Slab, and FS Millbank (a wayfinding typeface family by Stuart de Rozario).

In 2016, he created the rounded sans typeface FS Aldrin, FS Untitled and the geometric sans typeface FS Lucas. Still in 2016, Krista Radoeva put the finishing touches on the luxurious fashioon mag typeface FS Siena that Jason Smith had started drawing 25 years earlier. It is delicate, oozes style, and shows touches of Peignot in its contrast.

FS Sally Pro by Jason Smith and Phil Garnham won an award at Granshan 2016.

In 2018, Fontsmith published the joyful display typeface family FS Kim, the transitional storytelling text family FS Neruda, and the mammoth sans family FS Industrie.

The Lost & Foundry family of seven fonts, was designed in 2018: FS Berwick, FS Cattle, FS Century, FS Charity, FS Marlborough, FS Portland, FS St James. The campaign was developed by Fontsmith, M&C Saatchi London and Line Form Colour. The crumbling typefaces of Soho were recovered to be sold online as a collection of display fonts, to fund the House of St Barnabas's work with London's homeless. Fontsmith's designers Stuart de Rozario and Pedro Arilla worked with M&C Saatchi London to develop the fonts.

Still in 2018, Fontsmith published the modern typeface familty FS Ostro in text and display versions. It brings warmth and fresh air to the cold Italian didones. Its more subdued and less contrasted text version was influenced by Scotch romans. There are also genetic elements of Spanish display types.

Typefaces from 2019: FS Split Serif, FS Split Sans (+a variable font option).

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INTERNAL LINKS
Type designers ⦿ Type designers ⦿ Commercial fonts (small outfits) ⦿ Readability & Legibility ⦿ Octagonal typefaces ⦿ Greek/Coptic ⦿ Cyrillic type design ⦿ Type for TV ⦿ Type design in the United Kingdom ⦿ Bauhaus and type design ⦿ Corporate typefaces ⦿ Scotch Roman ⦿ Modern style [Bodoni, Didot, Walbaum, Thorowgood, Computer Modern, etc.] ⦿ Variable fonts ⦿