Foundry Sans is a humanistic sans serif face. The inspiration for Foundry Sans comes from Stempel Garamond. Foundry Sans, released in 1991, was originally conceived as a family of four weights, book, medium, demi, bold and book italic. Later a light and an extra bold weight where added to expand the family. All weights are supported by small capitals and old style figures.

When we released each typeface we sent out a flier to promote it. Each typeface has it’s own colour.

Foundry Sans came from an idea that I had discussed at the Paris Atypl with the designer of Syntax; I asked Hans Meier what had been the inspiration behind his design. Hans Meier replied the inspiration was Jan Tschichold’s Sabon. He had based Syntax on the proportions of Tchichold’s typeface and from it had produced a wholly original and outstanding typeface. I had always admired Stempel Garamond and suggested to Mieir that I could also take that route, Mieier though it was also an excellent idea. After Syntax Erik Spiekermann said, ‘That Foundry Sans was one of the first sans serifs to have a humanistic calligraphic element to emerge’.

Foundry Sans has been and still is a very successful typeface and has remained a mainstay in The Foundry collection of typefaces. It was the first Foundy typeface released in OpenType format.

David Quay adds

After analyzing the shapes, proportions and weights of the Stempel Garamond the next stage was to start sketching, sometimes even tracing over the original reference. But slowly the original inspiration fades slowly away leaving you with a wholly new design with the original inspiration imbued in.