FS Truman Taking a bespoke sans serif beyond broadcast. by Jason Smith and Fernando Mello
FS Truman Taking a bespoke sans serif beyond broadcast. by Jason Smith and Fernando Mello
As a font designer, it’s always exciting to see your work out there in the world. But for FS Truman, originally designed for a broadcast project, the font was always going to be a highly visible presence. Through 2008 and into 2009, we were working on a bespoke typeface system for a UK TV channel, featuring headline and text versions which we later merged for the font’s launch as part of our library.
We were influenced by the simple, legible, condensed and geometric aspect of Bauhaus inspired typefaces like FS Dillon. More of a rational decision than any personal preference. We firmly believed that these influences for the font’s skeleton were exactly what we needed: a legible, space saving, strong corporate typeface, yet with a particular tone of voice. Our next challenge was to figure out what details we could incorporate into the letters to really make the headline typeface unique, and therefore ownable. After a few attempts we went with the idea of making characters with hybrid features.
ti We were looking to create an eye-catching design that would work well on-screen and add force to announcements for upcoming action series and films – and one that would stand out among other TV channel typefaces.
FS Truman
Italic 315pt
For example, most of the top terminals in the open letters such as ‘c’ and ‘s’ have straight, vertical cuts, whereas their lower terminals have a more cursive finish. Once we’d settled on the design of the headline font, the text versions came swiftly and naturally.
While working on FS Truman, Jason and I were testing the font using mocked-up ads and billboards for the channel’s flagship series. So it was kind of fun to see how it would work out in the world, promoting series such as Lost and Prison Break which were being broadcast at the time.
FS Truman
ANC -RM Regular 234pt
Light 75pt
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We’re quite keen on the humanist model for sans serifs, although we believe the market is pretty saturated with humanist fonts. With FS Truman, what we’ve tried to do is take the humanist model to a different, more interesting level.
FS Truman
Have we succeeded? Well, with FS Truman, I think we’ve managed to create a really robust sans with a strong, rational spirit but with some distinctive, ownable quirks that will carry it far beyond its original broadcast context.
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Next A League Of Their Own
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Regular & Light Italic 12pt
10.30pm An Idiot Abroad Later Cop Squad
Ron Burgundy
Bold 20pt
AVAILABLE FORMATS
AVAILABLE WEIGHTS Light Light italic Regular Italic Bold Bold italic
OpenType TrueType
CE + Western European character set
Lining figures in Tabular and Proportional widths.
Mac and PC
FS Truman
LIGHT
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abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyzABCDEFGHI JKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZ0123456789!@£$ €%^&*({:”|<?[;’\,.~`±§ REGULAR
abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyzABCDEFGHI JKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZ0123456789!@£$ €%^&*({:”|<?[;’\,.~`±§ REGULAR ITALIC
abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyzABCDEFGHI JKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZ0123456789!@£$ €%^&*({:”|<?[;’\,.~`±§ BOLD
abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyzABCDEFGHI JKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZ0123456789!@£$ €%^&*({:”|<?[;’\,.~`±§ BOLD ITALIC
For further information and to buy FS Truman visit fontsmith.com
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