FF Atma Serif is an extensive text family that offers designers small caps in three different sizes, along with matching figures and punctuation. The design is rather timeless, with neoclassical qualities like vertical stress, but with less contrast and greater legibility than more romantic types – e.g. those based on the work of Bodoni, Didot, Fournier, or Walbaum. The three sizes of small caps are “Quarter Caps,” “Medium Caps,” and “Small Caps.” These various sizes offer unique typesetting possibilities. The Mid Caps are useful in setting acronyms, or where the standard x-height Small Caps would appear too small. Quarter Caps may be used in place of Mid Caps at the user’s preference, or in titling situations where the typographer might be tempted to scale down the full capitals by 75-90%. In addition to full capital height and small cap height lining figures, FF Atma Serif also includes tabular figures for setting columnar data. All of the tabular figures for a given weight are of the same width for all Roman and italic fonts, including the various sizes of small caps, allowing weights to be interchangeable inside this specific use. The name “Atma” is Kahouli for “mental clarity.”
