FONTSMITH: FS SIENA

Introducing a timeless classic

The story of FS Siena begins some 25 years ago when Fontsmith founder Jason Smith sketched the first letters onto tracing paper at college. Fast forward many years later and those initial designs had finally been lovingly crafted in to a beautiful new typeface that was now ready to launch, Fontsmith asked us to create the type specimen and launch campaign for this very special new release.

Services
Launch campaign
Printed collateral
Social media content

A timeless classic
With its origins stretching back to Roman carvings, FS Siena is a classical contrasted sans serif that has been brought fully up to date, full of elegance and sophistication. Appropriately titled ‘The Luxurious Type’, we designed an equally luxurious printed specimen that would do the letters justice.

Taking inspiration from the world of high-end brands, the sumptuous 48-page brochure captures FS Siena in it’s best light, hinting at ways in which it could be used; from perfume to property, beauty to boutique retailers, and fashion to fine watches.

The tale of the type
It’s easy to look at a finished pixel-perfect typeface and forget that each character and each curve has been carefully drawn, redrawn and endlessly refined. We decided to showcase the font’s long creative gestation by featuring some of the original drawings next to the final font. To separate this process work from the finished design, we reproduced the pencil sketches on tracing paper – as they had been drawn –interleaved throughout the specimen.

Wrapped in luxury
The specimen was designed to reflect its luxury credentials: printed in black with a shimmering spot varnish on three different paper stocks, with both black and white foils on the cover. The final touch saw each book wrapped by hand in a signature tissue paper using our bespoke typographic pattern, the FS Siena specimen really is a thing of luxury.

A future classic
As well as the printed specimen, we also created the wider launch campaign, including; content, photography and film for online advertising, email marketing, as well as a kit for press and social media.