Identify the discoveries behind FS Olivia
The Fontsmith account credits Eleni Beveratou. During study at Reading, she encountered an unusual Didot g in Antwerp’s Plantin-Moretus Museum and striking details in de Roos typefaces in poetry books found in Amsterdam. The account describes these discoveries as a starting point for capturing aspects of writing in a contemporary typeface, not a literal facsimile of one source alphabet.
Inspect instrokes and outstrokes in the same line
Fontsmith describes low junctions, deep top serifs, partly rounded edges and a contrast between rounded outstrokes and sharper instrokes. Set Notes in the margin in the original family and compare those details at an inspection size before returning to the actual reading size. Keep the wording and color unchanged when switching between the supplied Regular and Italic so the letter-construction changes remain visible.
Keep the original script coverage with the original resource
The publisher discusses polytonic Greek as part of the project. If a specimen includes approved Greek wording, inspect its actual accents and breathing marks in the appropriate FS Olivia resource; do not substitute Latin look-alikes. Lora and Petrona are independent comparisons here. The homepage’s portable character designs use Unicode substitutions, not FS Olivia’s actual forms or a guarantee of matching polytonic coverage.
Your questions, answered.
Which Olivia does this guide identify?
FS Olivia by Eleni Beveratou for Fontsmith, with its museum and printed-poetry references stated explicitly.
Is it a direct reproduction of one historical typeface?
The creator account describes several discoveries informing a contemporary design, not a single-source facsimile.
Sources & background
Sources supporting this page’s explanations. Practical examples are our editorial suggestions.