![A Specimen by William Caslon](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/4/45/A_Specimen_by_William_Caslon.jpg)
A typeface (or font family) is the design of
lettering
Lettering is an umbrella term that covers the art of drawing letters, instead of simply writing them. Lettering is considered an art form, where each letter in a phrase or quote acts as an illustration. Each letter is created with attention to d ...
that can include variations in size, weight (e.g. bold), slope (e.g. italic), width (e.g. condensed), and so on. Each of these variations of the typeface is a
font
In metal typesetting, a font is a particular size, weight and style of a typeface. Each font is a matched set of type, with a piece (a "sort") for each glyph. A typeface consists of a range of such fonts that shared an overall design.
In mod ...
.
There are
thousands of different typefaces in existence, with new ones being developed constantly.
The art and craft of designing typefaces is called ''
type design
Type design is the art and process of designing typefaces. This involves drawing each letterform using a consistent style. The basic concepts and design variables are described below.
A typeface differs from other modes of graphic production su ...
''. Designers of typefaces are called ''
type designer
Type design is the art and process of designing typefaces. This involves drawing each letterform using a consistent style. The basic concepts and design variables are described below.
A typeface differs from other modes of graphic production su ...
s'' and are often employed by ''
type foundries
A type foundry is a company that designs or distributes typefaces. Before digital typography, type foundries manufactured and sold metal and wood typefaces for hand typesetting, and matrices for line-casting machines like the Linotype and Monot ...
''. In
desktop publishing
Desktop publishing (DTP) is the creation of documents using page layout software on a personal ("desktop") computer. It was first used almost exclusively for print publications, but now it also assists in the creation of various forms of online c ...
, type designers are sometimes also called ''font developers'' or ''font designers''.
Every typeface is a collection of
glyph
A glyph () is any kind of purposeful mark. In typography, a glyph is "the specific shape, design, or representation of a character". It is a particular graphical representation, in a particular typeface, of an element of written language. A g ...
s, each of which represents an individual letter, number, punctuation mark, or other symbol. The same glyph may be used for
character
Character or Characters may refer to:
Arts, entertainment, and media Literature
* ''Character'' (novel), a 1936 Dutch novel by Ferdinand Bordewijk
* ''Characters'' (Theophrastus), a classical Greek set of character sketches attributed to The ...
s from different scripts, e.g. Roman uppercase
A looks the same as
Cyrillic
, bg, кирилица , mk, кирилица , russian: кириллица , sr, ћирилица, uk, кирилиця
, fam1 = Egyptian hieroglyphs
, fam2 = Proto-Sinaitic
, fam3 = Phoenician
, fam4 = G ...
uppercase А and Greek uppercase
alpha
Alpha (uppercase , lowercase ; grc, ἄλφα, ''álpha'', or ell, άλφα, álfa) is the first letter of the Greek alphabet. In the system of Greek numerals, it has a value of one. Alpha is derived from the Phoenician letter aleph , whic ...
. There are typefaces tailored for special applications, such as
cartography
Cartography (; from grc, χάρτης , "papyrus, sheet of paper, map"; and , "write") is the study and practice of making and using maps. Combining science, aesthetics and technique, cartography builds on the premise that reality (or an im ...
,
astrology
Astrology is a range of Divination, divinatory practices, recognized as pseudoscientific since the 18th century, that claim to discern information about human affairs and terrestrial events by studying the apparent positions of Celestial o ...
or
mathematics
Mathematics is an area of knowledge that includes the topics of numbers, formulas and related structures, shapes and the spaces in which they are contained, and quantities and their changes. These topics are represented in modern mathematics ...
.
Terminology
In professional
typography
Typography is the art and technique of arranging type to make written language legible, readable and appealing when displayed. The arrangement of type involves selecting typefaces, point sizes, line lengths, line-spacing ( leading), and ...
, the term ''typeface'' is not interchangeable with the word ''
font
In metal typesetting, a font is a particular size, weight and style of a typeface. Each font is a matched set of type, with a piece (a "sort") for each glyph. A typeface consists of a range of such fonts that shared an overall design.
In mod ...
'' (originally "fount" in British English, and pronounced "font"), because the term font has historically been defined as a given alphabet and its associated characters in a single size. For example, 8-point Caslon Italic was one font, and 10-point Caslon Italic was another. Historically, fonts came in specific sizes determining the size of characters, and in quantities of
sort
Sort may refer to:
* Sorting, any process of arranging items in sequence or in sets
** Sorting algorithm, any algorithm for arranging elements in lists
** Sort (Unix), a Unix utility which sorts the lines of a file
** Sort (C++), a function in the ...
s or number of each letter provided. The design of characters in a font took into account all these factors.
As the range of typeface designs increased and requirements of publishers broadened over the centuries, fonts of specific
weight
In science and engineering, the weight of an object is the force acting on the object due to gravity.
Some standard textbooks define weight as a Euclidean vector, vector quantity, the gravitational force acting on the object. Others define weigh ...
(blackness or lightness) and
stylistic variants (most commonly ''regular'' or ''
roman
Roman or Romans most often refers to:
*Rome, the capital city of Italy
*Ancient Rome, Roman civilization from 8th century BC to 5th century AD
*Roman people, the people of ancient Rome
*''Epistle to the Romans'', shortened to ''Romans'', a letter ...
'' as distinct to ''
italic'', as well as ''condensed'') have led to ''font families'', collections of closely related typeface designs that can include hundreds of styles. A font family is typically a group of related fonts which vary only in weight, orientation,
width
Length is a measure of distance. In the International System of Quantities, length is a quantity with dimension distance. In most systems of measurement a base unit for length is chosen, from which all other units are derived. In the Interna ...
, etc., but not design. For example,
Times
Time is the continued sequence of existence and events, and a fundamental quantity of measuring systems.
Time or times may also refer to:
Temporal measurement
* Time in physics, defined by its measurement
* Time standard, civil time specific ...
is a font family, whereas Times Roman, Times Italic and Times Bold are individual fonts making up the Times family. Font families typically include several fonts, though some, such as
Helvetica
Helvetica (originally Neue Haas Grotesk) is a widely used sans-serif typeface developed in 1957 by Swiss typeface designer Max Miedinger and Eduard Hoffmann.
Helvetica is a neo-grotesque design, one influenced by the famous 19th century (1890s) ...
, may consist of dozens of fonts.
Another way to look at the distinction between font and typeface is that a font is the vessel (e.g. the software) that allows you to use a set of characters with a given appearance, whereas a typeface is the actual design of such characters. Therefore, a given typeface, such as Times, may be rendered by different fonts, such as computer font files created by this or that vendor, a set of metal type characters etc. In the
metal type
In typesetting, a sort or type is a block with a typographic character etched on it, which is lined up with others to print text. In movable-type printing, the sort or type is cast from a matrix mold and assembled by hand with other sorts be ...
era, a font also meant a specific point size, but with digital scalable outline fonts this distinction is no longer valid, as a single font may be scaled to any size.
The first "extended" font families, which included a wide range of widths and weights in the same general style emerged in the early 1900s, starting with
ATF
The Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (BATFE), commonly referred to as the ATF, is a domestic law enforcement agency within the United States Department of Justice. Its responsibilities include the investigation and preven ...
's
Cheltenham
Cheltenham (), also known as Cheltenham Spa, is a spa town and borough on the edge of the Cotswolds in the county of Gloucestershire, England. Cheltenham became known as a health and holiday spa town resort, following the discovery of mineral s ...
(1902–1913), with an initial design by Bertram Grosvenor Goodhue, and many additional faces designed by
Morris Fuller Benton
Morris Fuller Benton (November 30, 1872 – June 30, 1948) was an American typeface designer who headed the design department of the American Type Founders (ATF), for which he was the chief type designer from 1900 to 1937.
Many of Benton's ...
. Later examples include
Futura,
Lucida
Lucida (pronunciation: ) is an extended family of related typefaces designed by Charles Bigelow and Kris Holmes and released from 1984 onwards. The family is intended to be extremely legible when printed at small size or displayed on a low-resol ...
,
ITC Officina
ITC Officina is a font superfamily designed by Erik Spiekermann and released in 1990
File:1990 Events Collage.png, From left, clockwise: The 1990 FIFA World Cup is played in Italy; The Human Genome Project is launched; Voyager I takes the f ...
. Some became superfamilies as a result of revival, such as
Linotype Syntax,
Linotype Univers; while others have alternate styling designed as compatible replacements of each other, such as
Compatil
Compatil is a large typeface family designed for interchangeable fonts while maintaining identical document metrics.
History
The Compatil typefaces were developed from 1999 to 2001 at Mergenthaler Linotype Company, Linotype Library GmbH. The na ...
,
Generis.
Font ''superfamilies'' began to emerge when foundries began to include typefaces with significant structural differences, but some design relationship, under the same general family name. Arguably the first superfamily was created when Morris Fuller Benton created Clearface Gothic for ATF in 1910, a sans serif companion to the existing (serifed) Clearface. The superfamily label does not include quite different designs given the same family name for what would seem to be purely marketing, rather than design, considerations:
Caslon Antique
{{Infobox font
, name = Caslon Antique
, image = Caslon Antique.png
, style = Display
, date = 1894
, creator = Berne Nadall
, foundry = Barnhart Brothers & Spindler
, sample =
}
Caslon Antique is a decorative American typeface that was ...
,
Futura Black and Futura Display are structurally unrelated to the Caslon and Futura families, respectively, and are generally not considered part of those families by typographers, despite their names.
Additional or supplemental
glyph
A glyph () is any kind of purposeful mark. In typography, a glyph is "the specific shape, design, or representation of a character". It is a particular graphical representation, in a particular typeface, of an element of written language. A g ...
s intended to match a main typeface have been in use for centuries. In some formats they have been marketed as separate fonts. In the early 1990s, the
Adobe Systems type group introduced the idea of ''expert set'' fonts, which had a standardized set of additional glyphs, including
small caps
In typography, small caps (short for "small capitals") are characters typeset with glyphs that resemble uppercase letters (capitals) but reduced in height and weight close to the surrounding lowercase letters or text figures. This is technicall ...
,
old style figures
Text figures (also known as non-lining, lowercase, old style, ranging, hanging, medieval, billing, or antique figures or numerals) are numerals designed with varying heights in a fashion that resembles a typical line of running text, hence the ...
, and additional superior letters,
fractions
A fraction (from la, fractus, "broken") represents a part of a whole or, more generally, any number of equal parts. When spoken in everyday English, a fraction describes how many parts of a certain size there are, for example, one-half, eight ...
and
ligatures not found in the main fonts for the typeface. Supplemental fonts have also included alternate letters such as
swashes,
dingbat
In typography, a dingbat (sometimes more formally known as a printer's ornament or printer's character) is an ornament, specifically, a glyph used in typesetting, often employed to create box frames, (similar to box-drawing characters) or a ...
s, and alternate character sets, complementing the regular fonts under the same family. However, with introduction of font formats such as
OpenType
OpenType is a format for scalable computer fonts. It was built on its predecessor TrueType, retaining TrueType's basic structure and adding many intricate data structures for prescribing typographic behavior. OpenType is a registered trademark o ...
, those supplemental glyphs were merged into the main fonts, relying on specific software capabilities to access the alternate glyphs.
Since Apple's and Microsoft's operating systems supported different character sets in the platform related fonts, some foundries used expert fonts in a different way. These fonts included the characters which were missing on either Macintosh or Windows computers, e.g. fractions, ligatures or some accented glyphs. The goal was to deliver the whole character set to the customer regardless of which operating system was used.
The size of typefaces and
font
In metal typesetting, a font is a particular size, weight and style of a typeface. Each font is a matched set of type, with a piece (a "sort") for each glyph. A typeface consists of a range of such fonts that shared an overall design.
In mod ...
s is traditionally measured in
points; ''point'' has been defined differently at different times, but now the most popular is the Desktop Publishing point of in (). When specified in typographic sizes (points, kyus), the height of an ''em-square'', an invisible box which is typically a bit larger than the distance from the tallest
ascender to the lowest
descender
In typography and handwriting, a descender is the portion of a letter that extends below the baseline of a font.
For example, in the letter ''y'', the descender is the "tail", or that portion of the diagonal line which lies below the ''v'' c ...
, is scaled to equal the specified size. For example, when setting
Helvetica
Helvetica (originally Neue Haas Grotesk) is a widely used sans-serif typeface developed in 1957 by Swiss typeface designer Max Miedinger and Eduard Hoffmann.
Helvetica is a neo-grotesque design, one influenced by the famous 19th century (1890s) ...
at 12 point, the em square defined in the Helvetica font is scaled to 12 points or . Yet no particular element of 12-point Helvetica need measure exactly 12 points.
Frequently measurement in non-typographic units (feet, inches, meters) will be of the ''cap-height'', the height of the capital letters. Font size is also commonly measured in millimeters (mm) and ''q''s (a quarter of a millimeter, ''kyu'' in romanized Japanese) and inches.
History
Type foundries have cast fonts in
lead
Lead is a chemical element with the symbol Pb (from the Latin ) and atomic number 82. It is a heavy metal that is denser than most common materials. Lead is soft and malleable, and also has a relatively low melting point. When freshly cu ...
alloys from the 1450s until the present, although wood served as the material for some large fonts called wood type during the 19th century, particularly in the
United States
The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 states, a federal district, five major unincorporated territorie ...
. In the 1890s the mechanization of typesetting allowed automated casting of fonts on the fly as lines of type in the size and length needed. This was known as continuous casting, and remained profitable and widespread until its demise in the 1970s. The first machine of this type was the
Linotype machine
The Linotype machine ( ) is a "line casting" machine used in printing; manufactured and sold by the former Mergenthaler Linotype Company and related It was a hot metal typesetting system that cast lines of metal type for individual uses. Lin ...
, invented by
Ottmar Mergenthaler
Ottmar Mergenthaler (11 May 1854 – 28 October 1899) was a German-American inventor who has been called a second Gutenberg, as Mergenthaler invented the linotype machine, the first device that could easily and quickly set complete lines of ...
.
During a brief transitional period (c. 1950s–1990s), photographic technology, known as ''
phototypesetting
Phototypesetting is a method of setting type. It uses photography to make columns of type on a scroll of photographic paper.
It has been made obsolete by the popularity of the personal computer and desktop publishing (digital typesetting).
Th ...
'', utilized tiny high-resolution images of individual glyphs on a film strip (in the form of a film negative, with the letters as clear areas on an opaque black background). A high-intensity light source behind the film strip projected the image of each glyph through an optical system, which focused the desired letter onto the light-sensitive phototypesetting paper at a specific size and position. This photographic typesetting process permitted optical
scaling
Scaling may refer to:
Science and technology
Mathematics and physics
* Scaling (geometry), a linear transformation that enlarges or diminishes objects
* Scale invariance, a feature of objects or laws that do not change if scales of length, energ ...
, allowing designers to produce multiple sizes from a single font, although physical constraints on the reproduction system used still required design changes at different sizes; for example,
ink trap
An ink trap is a feature of certain typefaces designed for printing in small sizes. At an ink trap, the corners or details are removed from the letterforms. When the type is printed, ink naturally spreads into the removed area. Without ink traps, t ...
s and spikes to allow for spread of
ink
Ink is a gel, sol, or solution that contains at least one colorant, such as a dye or pigment, and is used to color a surface to produce an image, text, or design. Ink is used for drawing or writing with a pen, brush, reed pen, or quill. Thicker ...
encountered in the printing stage. Manually operated photocomposition systems using fonts on filmstrips allowed fine
kerning
In typography, kerning is the process of adjusting the spacing between Character (symbol), characters in a Typeface#Proportion, proportional font, usually to achieve a visually pleasing result. Kerning adjusts the space between individual le ...
between letters without the physical effort of manual typesetting, and spawned an enlarged type design industry in the 1960s and 1970s.
By the mid-1970s, all of the major typeface technologies and all their fonts were in use: letterpress; continuous casting machines; phototypositors; computer-controlled phototypesetters; and the earliest digital typesetters – bulky machines with primitive processors and CRT outputs. From the mid-1980s, as digital typography has grown, users have almost universally adopted the American spelling ''font'', which has come to primarily refer to a
computer file
A computer file is a computer resource for recording data in a computer storage device, primarily identified by its file name. Just as words can be written to paper, so can data be written to a computer file. Files can be shared with and transfe ...
containing scalable outline letterforms (''digital font''), in one of several common formats. Some typefaces, such as
Verdana
Verdana is a humanist sans-serif typeface designed by Matthew Carter for Microsoft Corporation, with hand-hinting done by Thomas Rickner, then at Monotype. Demand for such a typeface was recognized by Virginia Howlett of Microsoft's typography ...
, are designed primarily for use on
computer screen
A computer monitor is an output device that displays information in pictorial or textual form. A discrete monitor comprises a visual display, support electronics, power supply, housing, electrical connectors, and external user controls.
The di ...
s.
Digital type
![Comparison of printed and digital versions of Perpetua](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/3/33/Comparison_of_printed_and_digital_versions_of_Perpetua.png)
Digital type became the dominant form of type in the late 1980s and early 1990s. Digital fonts store the image of each character either as a
bitmap
In computing, a bitmap is a mapping from some domain (for example, a range of integers) to bits. It is also called a bit array
A bit array (also known as bitmask, bit map, bit set, bit string, or bit vector) is an array data structure that c ...
in a ''
bitmap font
A computer font is implemented as a digital data file containing a set of graphically related glyphs. A computer font is designed and created using a font editor. A computer font specifically designed for the computer screen, and not for prin ...
'', or by mathematical description of lines and curves in an ''outline font'', also called a ''
vector font''. Bitmap fonts were more commonly used in the earlier stages of digital type, and are rarely used today. These bitmapped typefaces were first produced by
Casady & Greene, Inc. and were also known as Fluent Fonts. Fluent Fonts became mostly obsolete with the creation of downloadable PostScript fonts, and these new fonts are called Fluent Laser Fonts (FLF).
When an outline font is used, a
rasterizing routine (in the application software, operating system or printer) renders the character outlines, interpreting the vector instructions to decide which pixels should be black and which ones white. Rasterization is straightforward at high resolutions such as those used by
laser printer
Laser printing is an electrostatic digital printing process. It produces high-quality text and graphics (and moderate-quality photographs) by repeatedly passing a laser beam back and forth over a negatively-charged cylinder called a "drum" to d ...
s and in high-end publishing systems. For
computer screen
A computer monitor is an output device that displays information in pictorial or textual form. A discrete monitor comprises a visual display, support electronics, power supply, housing, electrical connectors, and external user controls.
The di ...
s, where each individual pixel can mean the difference between legible and illegible characters, some digital fonts use
hinting algorithms to make readable bitmaps at small sizes.
Digital fonts may also contain data representing the ''metrics'' used for composition, including
kerning
In typography, kerning is the process of adjusting the spacing between Character (symbol), characters in a Typeface#Proportion, proportional font, usually to achieve a visually pleasing result. Kerning adjusts the space between individual le ...
pairs, component creation data for accented characters, glyph substitution rules for Arabic typography and for connecting script faces, and for simple everyday
ligature
Ligature may refer to:
* Ligature (medicine), a piece of suture used to shut off a blood vessel or other anatomical structure
** Ligature (orthodontic), used in dentistry
* Ligature (music), an element of musical notation used especially in the me ...
s like "". Common font formats include
TrueType
TrueType is an outline font standard developed by Apple in the late 1980s as a competitor to Adobe's Type 1 fonts used in PostScript. It has become the most common format for fonts on the classic Mac OS, macOS, and Microsoft Windows operating sy ...
,
OpenType
OpenType is a format for scalable computer fonts. It was built on its predecessor TrueType, retaining TrueType's basic structure and adding many intricate data structures for prescribing typographic behavior. OpenType is a registered trademark o ...
and
PostScript
PostScript (PS) is a page description language in the electronic publishing and desktop publishing realm. It is a dynamically typed, concatenative programming language. It was created at Adobe Systems by John Warnock, Charles Geschke, Doug Br ...
Type 1, while
Metafont is still used by
TeX
Tex may refer to:
People and fictional characters
* Tex (nickname), a list of people and fictional characters with the nickname
* Joe Tex (1933–1982), stage name of American soul singer Joseph Arrington Jr.
Entertainment
* ''Tex'', the Italian ...
and its variants. Applications using these font formats, including the rasterizers, appear in Microsoft and Apple Computer
operating system
An operating system (OS) is system software that manages computer hardware, software resources, and provides common services for computer programs.
Time-sharing operating systems schedule tasks for efficient use of the system and may also in ...
s,
Adobe Systems
Adobe Inc. ( ), originally called Adobe Systems Incorporated, is an American multinational computer software company incorporated in Delaware
and headquartered in San Jose, California. It has historically specialized in software for the crea ...
products and those of several other companies. Digital fonts are created with font editors such as
FontForge, RoboFont, Glyphs,
Fontlab's TypeTool, FontLab Studio, Fontographer, or AsiaFont Studio.
Typeface anatomy
Typographers have developed a comprehensive vocabulary for describing the many aspects of typefaces and typography. Some vocabulary applies only to a subset of all
scripts
Script may refer to:
Writing systems
* Script, a distinctive writing system, based on a repertoire of specific elements or symbols, or that repertoire
* Script (styles of handwriting)
** Script typeface, a typeface with characteristics of handw ...
. ''Serifs'', for example, are a purely decorative characteristic of typefaces used for European scripts, whereas the glyphs used in Arabic or East Asian scripts have characteristics (such as stroke width) that may be similar in some respects but cannot reasonably be called serifs and may not be purely decorative.
Serifs
Typefaces can be divided into two main categories:
serif
In typography, a serif () is a small line or stroke regularly attached to the end of a larger stroke in a letter or symbol within a particular font or family of fonts. A typeface or "font family" making use of serifs is called a serif typeface ...
and
sans serif
In typography and lettering, a sans-serif, sans serif, gothic, or simply sans letterform is one that does not have extending features called "serifs" at the end of strokes. Sans-serif typefaces tend to have less stroke width variation than seri ...
.
Serif
In typography, a serif () is a small line or stroke regularly attached to the end of a larger stroke in a letter or symbol within a particular font or family of fonts. A typeface or "font family" making use of serifs is called a serif typeface ...
s comprise the small features at the end of strokes within letters. The printing industry refers to typeface without serifs as sans serif (from French ''sans'', meaning ''without''), or as ''grotesque'' (or, in
German
German(s) may refer to:
* Germany (of or related to)
**Germania (historical use)
* Germans, citizens of Germany, people of German ancestry, or native speakers of the German language
** For citizens of Germany, see also German nationality law
**Ger ...
, ''grotesk'').
Great variety exists among both serif and sans serif typefaces. Both groups contain faces designed for setting large amounts of body text, and others intended primarily as decorative. The presence or absence of serifs represents only one of many factors to consider when choosing a typeface.
Typefaces with serifs are often considered easier to read in long passages than those without. Studies on the matter are ambiguous, suggesting that most of this effect is due to the greater familiarity of serif typefaces. As a general rule, printed works such as newspapers and books almost always use serif typefaces, at least for the text body. Web sites do not have to specify a font and can simply respect the browser settings of the user. But of those web sites that do specify a font, most use modern sans serif fonts, because it is commonly believed that, in contrast to the case for printed material, sans serif fonts are easier than serif fonts to read on the low-resolution computer screen.
Proportion
A proportional typeface contains glyphs of varying widths, while a
monospaced
A monospaced font, also called a fixed-pitch, fixed-width, or non-proportional font, is a font whose letters and characters each occupy the same amount of horizontal space. This contrasts with variable-width fonts, where the letters and spac ...
(non-proportional or fixed-width) typeface uses a single standard width for all glyphs in the font.
Duospaced font
A duospaced font (also called a duospace font) is a fixed-width font whose letters and characters occupy either of two integer multiples of a specified, fixed horizontal space. Traditionally, this means either a single or double character width, al ...
s are similar to monospaced fonts, but characters can also be two character widths instead of a single character width.
Many people generally find proportional typefaces nicer-looking and easier to read, and thus they appear more commonly in professionally published printed material. For the same reason,
GUI
The GUI ( "UI" by itself is still usually pronounced . or ), graphical user interface, is a form of user interface that allows users to interact with electronic devices through graphical icons and audio indicator such as primary notation, inste ...
computer applications (such as
word processor
A word processor (WP) is a device or computer program that provides for input, editing, formatting, and output of text, often with some additional features.
Word processor (electronic device), Early word processors were stand-alone devices ded ...
s and
web browser
A web browser is application software for accessing websites. When a user requests a web page from a particular website, the browser retrieves its files from a web server and then displays the page on the user's screen. Browsers are used on ...
s) typically use proportional fonts. However, many proportional fonts contain fixed-width (tabular) figures so that columns of numbers stay aligned.
Monospaced typefaces function better for some purposes because their glyphs line up in neat, regular columns. No glyph is given any more weight than another. Most manually operated
typewriter
A typewriter is a mechanical or electromechanical machine for typing characters. Typically, a typewriter has an array of keys, and each one causes a different single character to be produced on paper by striking an inked ribbon selectivel ...
s use monospaced fonts. So do
text-only computer displays and third- and fourth-generation game console graphics processors, which treat the screen as a uniform grid of character cells. Most computer programs which have a text-based interface (
terminal emulator
A terminal emulator, or terminal application, is a computer program that emulates a video terminal within some other display architecture. Though typically synonymous with a shell or text terminal, the term ''terminal'' covers all remote termin ...
s, for example) use only monospaced fonts (or add additional spacing to proportional fonts to fit them in monospaced cells) in their configuration. Monospaced fonts are commonly used by
computer programmer
A computer programmer, sometimes referred to as a software developer, a software engineer, a programmer or a coder, is a person who creates computer programs — often for larger computer software.
A programmer is someone who writes/creates ...
s for displaying and editing
source code
In computing, source code, or simply code, is any collection of code, with or without comments, written using a human-readable programming language, usually as plain text. The source code of a program is specially designed to facilitate the wo ...
so that certain characters (for example
parentheses
A bracket is either of two tall fore- or back-facing punctuation marks commonly used to isolate a segment of text or data from its surroundings. Typically deployed in symmetric pairs, an individual bracket may be identified as a 'left' or 'r ...
used to group arithmetic expressions) are easy to see.
ASCII art
ASCII art is a graphic design technique that uses computers for presentation and consists of pictures pieced together from the 95 printable (from a total of 128) characters defined by the ASCII Standard from 1963 and ASCII compliant chara ...
usually requires a monospaced font for proper viewing, with the exception of
Shift JIS art
Shift_JIS art is artwork created from characters in the Shift JIS character set, a superset of the ASCII encoding standard intended for Japanese usage. Shift_JIS art has become popular on web-based bulletin boards, notably 2channel, and has e ...
which takes advantage of the proportional characters in the
MS PGothic font. In a
web page, the
<tt> </tt>
,
<code> </code>
or
<pre> </pre>
HTML
The HyperText Markup Language or HTML is the standard markup language for documents designed to be displayed in a web browser. It can be assisted by technologies such as Cascading Style Sheets (CSS) and scripting languages such as JavaScri ...
tags most commonly specify monospaced fonts. In
LaTeX
Latex is an emulsion (stable dispersion) of polymer microparticles in water. Latexes are found in nature, but synthetic latexes are common as well.
In nature, latex is found as a milky fluid found in 10% of all flowering plants (angiosperms ...
, the ''verbatim'' environment or the
Teletype
A teleprinter (teletypewriter, teletype or TTY) is an electromechanical device that can be used to send and receive typed messages through various communications channels, in both point-to-point and point-to-multipoint configurations. Initia ...
font family (e.g.,
\texttt
or
) uses monospaced fonts (in
TeX
Tex may refer to:
People and fictional characters
* Tex (nickname), a list of people and fictional characters with the nickname
* Joe Tex (1933–1982), stage name of American soul singer Joseph Arrington Jr.
Entertainment
* ''Tex'', the Italian ...
, use
).
Any two lines of text with the same number of characters in each line in a monospaced typeface should display as equal in width, while the same two lines in a proportional typeface may have radically different widths. This occurs because in a proportional font, glyph widths vary, such that wider glyphs (typically those for characters such as W, Q, Z, M, D, O, H, and U) use more space, and narrower glyphs (such as those for the characters i, t, l, and 1) use less space than the average.
In the publishing industry, it was once the case that editors read
manuscript
A manuscript (abbreviated MS for singular and MSS for plural) was, traditionally, any document written by hand – or, once practical typewriters became available, typewritten – as opposed to mechanically printing, printed or repr ...
s in monospaced fonts (typically Courier) for ease of editing and word count estimates, and it was considered discourteous to submit a manuscript in a proportional font. This has become less universal in recent years, such that authors need to check with editors as to their preference, though monospaced fonts are still the norm.
Font metrics
Most
scripts
Script may refer to:
Writing systems
* Script, a distinctive writing system, based on a repertoire of specific elements or symbols, or that repertoire
* Script (styles of handwriting)
** Script typeface, a typeface with characteristics of handw ...
share the notion of a
baseline: an imaginary horizontal line on which characters rest. In some scripts, parts of glyphs lie below the baseline. The ''descent'' spans the distance between the baseline and the lowest descending glyph in a typeface, and the part of a glyph that descends below the baseline has the name ''
descender
In typography and handwriting, a descender is the portion of a letter that extends below the baseline of a font.
For example, in the letter ''y'', the descender is the "tail", or that portion of the diagonal line which lies below the ''v'' c ...
''. Conversely, the ''ascent'' spans the distance between the baseline and the top of the glyph that reaches farthest from the baseline. The ascent and descent may or may not include distance added by accents or diacritical marks.
In the
Latin
Latin (, or , ) is a classical language belonging to the Italic branch of the Indo-European languages. Latin was originally a dialect spoken in the lower Tiber area (then known as Latium) around present-day Rome, but through the power of the ...
,
Greek
Greek may refer to:
Greece
Anything of, from, or related to Greece, a country in Southern Europe:
*Greeks, an ethnic group.
*Greek language, a branch of the Indo-European language family.
**Proto-Greek language, the assumed last common ancestor ...
and
Cyrillic
, bg, кирилица , mk, кирилица , russian: кириллица , sr, ћирилица, uk, кирилиця
, fam1 = Egyptian hieroglyphs
, fam2 = Proto-Sinaitic
, fam3 = Phoenician
, fam4 = G ...
(sometimes collectively referred to as LGC) scripts, one can refer to the distance from the baseline to the top of regular lowercase glyphs (
mean line
In typography, the mean line is the imaginary line at the top of the x-height.
upright 2.0, alt=A diagram showing the line terms used in typography
Round glyphs will tend to break ( overshoot) the mean line slightly in many typefaces, since th ...
) as the ''
x-height
upright 2.0, alt=A diagram showing the line terms used in typography
In typography, the x-height, or corpus size, is the distance between the baseline and the mean line of lowercase letters in a typeface. Typically, this is the height of the let ...
'', and the part of a glyph rising above the x-height as the ''
ascender''. The distance from the baseline to the top of the ascent or a regular uppercase glyphs (cap line) is also known as the cap height. The height of the ascender can have a dramatic effect on the readability and appearance of a font. The ratio between the x-height and the ascent or cap height often serves to characterize typefaces.
Typefaces that can be substituted for one another in a document without changing the document's text flow are said to be "metrically identical" (or "metrically compatible"). Several typefaces have been created to be metrically compatible with widely used proprietary typefaces to allow the editing of documents set in such typefaces in digital typesetting environments where these typefaces are not available. For instance, the free and open-source
Liberation fonts
Liberation is the collective name of four TrueType font families: ''Liberation Sans'', ''Liberation Sans Narrow'', ''Liberation Serif'', and ''Liberation Mono''. These fonts are metrically compatible with the most popular fonts on the Microsof ...
and
Croscore fonts
The ChromeOS core fonts, also known as the Croscore fonts, are a collection of three TrueType font families: Arimo (sans-serif), Tinos (serif) and Cousine (monospace). These fonts are metrically compatible with Monotype Corporation’s Arial ...
have been designed as metrically compatible substitutes for widely used
Microsoft
Microsoft Corporation is an American multinational technology corporation producing computer software, consumer electronics, personal computers, and related services headquartered at the Microsoft Redmond campus located in Redmond, Washing ...
fonts.
Optical sizing
During the metal type era, all type was cut in metal and could only be printed at a specific size. It was a natural process to vary a design at different sizes, making it chunkier and clearer to read at smaller sizes.
Many digital typefaces are offered with a range of fonts (or a variable font axis) for different sizes, especially designs sold for professional design use. The art of designing fonts for a specific size is known as
optical sizing. Others will be offered in only one style, but optimised for a specific size. Optical sizes are particularly common for serif fonts, since the fine detail of serif fonts can need to be bulked up for smaller sizes.
Typefaces may also be designed differently considering the type of paper on which they will be printed. Designs to be printed on absorbent
newsprint
Newsprint is a low-cost, non-archival paper consisting mainly of wood pulp and most commonly used to print newspapers and other publications and advertising material. Invented in 1844 by Charles Fenerty of Nova Scotia, Canada, it usually has an ...
paper will be more slender as the ink will naturally spread out as it absorbs into the paper, and may feature
ink trap
An ink trap is a feature of certain typefaces designed for printing in small sizes. At an ink trap, the corners or details are removed from the letterforms. When the type is printed, ink naturally spreads into the removed area. Without ink traps, t ...
s: areas left blank into which the ink will soak as it dries. These corrections will not be needed for printing on high-gloss cardboard or display on-screen. Fonts designed for low-resolution displays, meanwhile, may avoid pure circles, fine lines and details a screen cannot render.
Typesetting numbers
![Proportional & tabular figures](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/b/ba/Proportional_%26_tabular_figures.png)
Most typefaces, especially modern designs, include a complementary set of numeric digits.
Numbers can be typeset in two main independent sets of ways: ''lining'' and ''
non-lining figures
Text figures (also known as non-lining, lowercase, old style, ranging, hanging, medieval, billing, or antique figures or numerals) are numerals designed with varying heights in a fashion that resembles a typical line of running text, hence the ...
'', and ''proportional'' and ''tabular'' styles.
Most modern typefaces set numeric digits by default as lining figures, which are the height of upper-case letters.
Non-lining figures
Text figures (also known as non-lining, lowercase, old style, ranging, hanging, medieval, billing, or antique figures or numerals) are numerals designed with varying heights in a fashion that resembles a typical line of running text, hence the ...
, styled to match lower-case letters, are often common in fonts intended for body text, as they are thought to be less disruptive to the style of running text. They are also called ''lower-case numbers'' or ''text figures'' for the same reason.
The horizontal spacing of digits can also be ''proportional'', with a character width tightly matching the width of the figure itself, or ''tabular'', where all digits have the same width. Proportional spacing places the digits closely together, reducing empty space in a document, and is thought to allow the numbers to blend into the text more effectively. As tabular spacing makes all numbers with the same number of digits the same width, it is used for typesetting documents such as price lists, stock listings and sums in mathematics textbooks, all of which require columns of numeric figures to line up on top of each other for easier comparison. Tabular spacing is also a common feature of simple printing devices such as
cash register
A cash register, sometimes called a till or automated money handling system, is a mechanical or electronic device for registering and calculating transactions at a point of sale. It is usually attached to a drawer for storing cash and other v ...
s and date-stamps.
Characters of uniform width are a standard feature of so-called
monospaced font
A monospaced font, also called a fixed-pitch, fixed-width, or non-proportional font, is a font whose letters and characters each occupy the same amount of horizontal space. This contrasts with variable-width fonts, where the letters and spaci ...
s, used in programming and on typewriters. However, many fonts that are not monospaced use tabular figures. More complex font designs may include two or more combinations with one as the default and others as alternate characters. Of the four possibilities, non-lining tabular figures are particularly rare since there is no common use for them.
Fonts intended for professional use in documents such as business reports may also make the bold-style tabular figures take up the same width as the regular (non-bold) numbers, so a bold-style total would appear just as wide as the same sum in regular style.
Style of typefaces
Because an abundance of typefaces has been created over the centuries, they are commonly categorized according to their appearance. At the highest level (in the context of Latin-script fonts), one can differentiate Roman, Blackletter, and Gaelic types.
Roman type
In Latin script typography, roman is one of the three main kinds of historical type, alongside blackletter and italic. Roman type was modelled from a European scribal manuscript style of the 15th century, based on the pairing of inscriptional ...
s are in the most widespread use today, and are sub-classified as serif, sans serif, ornamental, and script types. Historically, the first European fonts were blackletter, followed by Roman serif, then sans serif and then the other types. The use of Gaelic faces was restricted to the Irish language, though these form a unique if minority class. Typefaces may be monospaced regardless of whether they are Roman, Blackletter, or Gaelic. Symbol typefaces are non-alphabetic. The Cyrillic script comes in two varieties, Roman type (called
гражданский шрифт ''graždanskij šrift'') and traditional Slavonic type (called славянский шрифт ''slavjanskij šrift'').
Roman typefaces
Serif typefaces
![Three ages](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/b/b5/Three_ages.png)
Serif, or ''Roman'', typefaces are named for the features at the ends of their strokes.
Times New Roman
Times New Roman is a serif typeface. It was commissioned by the British newspaper ''The Times'' in 1931 and conceived by Stanley Morison, the artistic adviser to the British branch of the printing equipment company Monotype, in collaboration wit ...
and
Garamond
Garamond is a group of many serif typefaces, named for sixteenth-century Parisian engraver Claude Garamond, generally spelled as Garamont in his lifetime. Garamond-style typefaces are popular and particularly often used for book printing and b ...
are common examples of serif typefaces. Serif fonts are probably the most used class in printed materials, including most books, newspapers and magazines. Serif fonts are often classified into three subcategories: Old Style, Transitional, and
Didone (or Modern), representative examples of which are
Garamond
Garamond is a group of many serif typefaces, named for sixteenth-century Parisian engraver Claude Garamond, generally spelled as Garamont in his lifetime. Garamond-style typefaces are popular and particularly often used for book printing and b ...
,
Baskerville
Baskerville is a serif typeface designed in the 1750s by John Baskerville (1706–1775) in Birmingham, England, and cut into metal by punchcutter John Handy. Baskerville is classified as a Serif#Transitional, transitional typeface, intended as a ...
, and
Bodoni
Bodoni is the name given to the serif typefaces first designed by Giambattista Bodoni (1740–1813) in the late eighteenth century and frequently revived since. Bodoni's typefaces are classified as Didone or modern. Bodoni followed the ideas o ...
respectively.
Old Style typefaces are influenced by early Italian lettering design. Modern fonts often exhibit a bracketed serif and a substantial difference in weight within the strokes. Though some argument exists as to whether Transitional fonts exist as a discrete category among serif fonts, Transitional fonts lie somewhere between Old Style and Modern style typefaces. Transitional fonts exhibit a marked increase in the variation of stroke weight and a more horizontal serif compared to Old Style. Slab serif designs have particularly large serifs, and date to the early nineteenth century. The earliest known slab serif font was first shown around 1817 by the English typefounder
Vincent Figgins
Vincent Figgins (1766 – 29 February 1844) was a British typefounder based in London, who cast and sold metal type for printing. After an apprenticeship with typefounder Joseph Jackson, he established his own type foundry in 1792. His company ...
.
''Roman'', ''italic'', and ''oblique'' are also terms used to differentiate between upright and two possible slanted forms of a typeface. Italic and oblique fonts are similar (indeed, oblique fonts are often simply called italics) but there is strictly a difference: ''italic'' applies to fonts where the letter forms are redesigned, not just slanted. Almost all serif faces have italic forms; some sans-serif faces have oblique designs. (Most faces do not offer both as this is an artistic choice by the font designer about how the slanted form should look.)
Sans-serif typefaces
![Helvetica](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/8/8b/Helvetica.svg)
Sans serif (lit. without serif) designs appeared relatively recently in the history of type design. The first, similar to slab serif designs, was shown in 1816 by William Caslon IV. Many have minimal variation in stroke width, creating the impression of a minimal, simplified design.
A well-known and popular sans serif font is
Max Miedinger
Max Miedinger (24 December 1910 – 8 March 1980) was a Swiss typeface designer, best known for creating the ''Neue Haas Grotesk'' typeface in 1957, renamed Helvetica in 1960. Marketed as a symbol of cutting-edge Swiss technology, Helvetica achie ...
's
Helvetica
Helvetica (originally Neue Haas Grotesk) is a widely used sans-serif typeface developed in 1957 by Swiss typeface designer Max Miedinger and Eduard Hoffmann.
Helvetica is a neo-grotesque design, one influenced by the famous 19th century (1890s) ...
, popularized for desktop publishing by inclusion with
Apple Computer
Apple Inc. is an American multinational technology company headquartered in Cupertino, California, United States. Apple is the largest technology company by revenue (totaling in 2021) and, as of June 2022, is the world's biggest company b ...
's LaserWriter laserprinter and having been one of the first readily available digital typefaces.
Arial
Arial (also called Arial MT) is a sans-serif typeface and set of computer fonts in the neo-grotesque style. Fonts from the Arial family are included with all versions of Microsoft Windows from Windows 3.1 on, some other Microsoft software appli ...
, popularized by Microsoft, is a common Helvetica substitute. Other fonts such as
Futura,
Gill Sans
Gill Sans is a humanist sans-serif typeface designed by Eric Gill and released by the British branch of Monotype from 1928 onwards.
Gill Sans is based on Edward Johnston's 1916 "Underground Alphabet", the corporate font of London Underground. ...
,
Univers
Univers () is a large sans-serif typeface family designed by Adrian Frutiger and released by his employer Deberny & Peignot in 1957. Classified as a Grotesque (typeface classification), neo-grotesque sans-serif, one based on the model of nineteen ...
and
Frutiger have also remained popular over many decades.
Blackletter typefaces
Blackletter fonts, the earliest typefaces used with the invention of the
printing press
A printing press is a mechanical device for applying pressure to an inked surface resting upon a printing, print medium (such as paper or cloth), thereby transferring the ink. It marked a dramatic improvement on earlier printing methods in wh ...
in Europe, resemble the blackletter calligraphy of that time and place. Many people refer to them as ''gothic script''. Various forms exist including
textualis
Blackletter (sometimes black letter), also known as Gothic script, Gothic minuscule, or Textura, was a script used throughout Western Europe from approximately 1150 until the 17th century. It continued to be commonly used for the Danish, Norweg ...
,
rotunda,
schwabacher
The German word Schwabacher (pronounced ) refers to a specific style of blackletter typefaces which evolved from Gothic Textualis (''Textura'') under the influence of Humanist type design in Italy during the 15th century. Schwabacher typesetti ...
, and
fraktur
Fraktur () is a calligraphic hand of the Latin alphabet and any of several blackletter typefaces derived from this hand. The blackletter lines are broken up; that is, their forms contain many angles when compared to the curves of the Antiqu ...
.
Gaelic typefaces
Gaelic fonts were first used for the
Irish language
Irish ( Standard Irish: ), also known as Gaelic, is a Goidelic language of the Insular Celtic branch of the Celtic language family, which is a part of the Indo-European language family. Irish is indigenous to the island of Ireland and was ...
in 1571, and were used regularly for Irish until the early 1960s, though they continue to be used in display type and type for signage. Their use was effectively confined to Ireland, though Gaelic typefaces were designed and produced in France, Belgium, and Italy. Gaelic typefaces make use of
insular letterforms, and early fonts made use of a variety of abbreviations deriving from the manuscript tradition. Various forms exist, including manuscript, traditional, and modern styles, chiefly distinguished as having angular or uncial features.
Monospaced typefaces
![Courier simple sample](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/a/ae/Courier_simple_sample.png)
Monospaced fonts are typefaces in which every glyph is the same width (as opposed to variable-width fonts, where the ''w'' and ''m'' are wider than most letters, and the ''i'' is narrower). The first monospaced typefaces were designed for typewriters, which could only move the same distance forward with each letter typed. Their use continued with early computers, which could only display a single font. Although modern computers can display any desired typeface, monospaced fonts are still important for
computer programming
Computer programming is the process of performing a particular computation (or more generally, accomplishing a specific computing result), usually by designing and building an executable computer program. Programming involves tasks such as ana ...
, terminal emulation, and for laying out tabulated data in
plain text
In computing, plain text is a loose term for data (e.g. file contents) that represent only characters of readable material but not its graphical representation nor other objects (floating-point numbers, images, etc.). It may also include a limit ...
documents; they may also be particularly legible at small sizes due to all characters being quite wide.
Examples of monospaced typefaces are
Courier
A courier is a person or organisation that delivers a message, package or letter from one place or person to another place or person. Typically, a courier provides their courier service on a commercial contract basis; however, some couriers are ...
,
Prestige Elite
Prestige Elite, also known simply as Prestige or Elite, is a monospaced typeface.
It was created by Clayton Smith in 1953 for IBM. Along with Courier, it was extremely popular for use in electric typewriters, especially the IBM Selectric. Unlik ...
,
Fixedsys
''Fixedsys'' is a family of raster monospaced fonts. The name means ''fixed system'', because its glyphs are monospace or fixed-width (although bolded characters are wider than non-bolded, unlike other monospace fonts such as Courier). It is t ...
, and
Monaco
Monaco (; ), officially the Principality of Monaco (french: Principauté de Monaco; Ligurian: ; oc, Principat de Mónegue), is a sovereign city-state and microstate on the French Riviera a few kilometres west of the Italian region of Lig ...
. Most monospaced fonts are sans-serif or slab-serif as these designs are easiest to read printed small or display on low-resolution screens, though many exceptions exist.
CJK typefaces
CJK, or Chinese, Japanese and Korean typefaces consist of large sets of glyphs. These typefaces originate in the glyphs found in brush calligraphy during the Tang Dynasty. These later evolved into the Song style (宋体字) which used thick vertical strokes and thin horizontal strokes in wood block printing.
The glyphs found in CJK fonts are designed to fit within a square. This allows for regular vertical, horizontal, right-to-left and left-to-right orientations. CJK fonts can also include an extended set of monospaced Latin characters. This commonly results in complex, sometimes contradictory rules and conventions for mixing languages in type.
Mincho
With CJK typefaces, Mincho style tends to be something like Serifs for the end of stems, and in fact includes Serifed glyphs for Extended Latin and Cyrillic sets within a typeface.
Gothic
With CJK typefaces, Goth style tends to be something like Sans Serifs with squarish, cut off end-caps for the end of stems, and in fact includes Sans Serif glyphs for Extended Latin and Cyrillic sets within a typeface.
Maru
With CJK typefaces, Maru style tends to be something like Sans Serifs with rounded end-caps for the end of stems, and in fact includes Rounded Sans Serif glyphs for Extended Latin and Cyrillic sets within a typeface.
Display type
![Theydon Bois](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/4/4b/Theydon_Bois.JPG)
Display type refers to the use of type at large sizes, perhaps 30 points or larger. Some typefaces are considered useful solely at display sizes, and are known as display faces. Most effect typefaces are display types. Common features of display type include tighter default letter spacing, finer details and serifs, slightly more condensed letter shapes and larger differences between thick and thin strokes; many of these are most visible in serif designs. Many display typefaces in the past such as those intended for posters and newspaper headlines were also only cut in capitals, since it was assumed lower-case would not be needed, or at least with no italics. This was true of many early sans-serif fonts.
![Perpetua Text and Titling](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/2/21/Perpetua_Text_and_Titling.png)
In the days of metal type, when each size was cut individually, display types were often cut that were adjusted for display use. These modifications continued to be made even after fonts started to be made by scaling using a pantograph, but began to fade away with the advent of phototypesetting and then digital fonts, which can both be printed at any size. Premium digital fonts used for magazines, books and newspapers do often include display variants, but they are often not included with typefaces bundled with operating systems and desktop publishing software. Display typefaces in the letterpress period were often made as
wood type
In letterpress printing, wood type is movable type made out of wood. First used in China for printing body text, wood type became popular during the nineteenth century for making large display typefaces for printing posters, because it was lig ...
, being lighter than metal.
Decades into the desktop publishing revolution, few typographers with metal foundry type experience are still working, and few digital typefaces are optimized specifically for different sizes, so the misuse of the term display typeface as a synonym for ornamental type has become widespread; properly speaking, ornamental typefaces are a subcategory of display typefaces. At the same time, with new printing techniques, typefaces have largely replaced hand-lettering for very large signs and notices that would once have been painted or carved by hand.
Script typefaces
Script typefaces imitate handwriting or
calligraphy
Calligraphy (from el, link=y, καλλιγραφία) is a visual art related to writing. It is the design and execution of lettering with a pen, ink brush, or other writing instrument. Contemporary calligraphic practice can be defined as "t ...
. They do not lend themselves to quantities of
body text
__NOTOC__
The body text or body copy is the text forming the main content of a book, magazine, web page, or any other printed or digital work. This is as a contrast to both additional components such as headings, images, charts, footnotes etc. on ...
, as people find them harder to read than many serif and sans-serif typefaces; they are typically used for logos or invitations. Historically, most lettering on logos, displays, shop frontages did not use fonts but was rather custom-designed by signpainters and engravers, so many emulate the styles of hand-drawn signs from different historical periods. The genre has developed rapidly in recent years due to modern font formats allowing more complex simulations of handwriting.
Examples include
Coronet
A coronet is a small crown consisting of ornaments fixed on a metal ring. A coronet differs from other kinds of crowns in that a coronet never has arches, and from a tiara in that a coronet completely encircles the head, while a tiara does ...
(a quite simple design from 1937) and
Zapfino
Zapfino is a calligraphic typeface designed for Linotype by typeface designer Hermann Zapf in 1998. It is based on an alphabet Zapf originally penned in 1944. As a font, it makes extensive use of ligatures and character variations (for examp ...
(a much more complicated digital design).
Ethnic typefaces
Ethnic typefaces are decorative typefaces that have been designed to represent characters of the Roman alphabet but at the same time evoke another
writing system
A writing system is a method of visually representing verbal communication, based on a script and a set of rules regulating its use. While both writing and speech are useful in conveying messages, writing differs in also being a reliable form ...
.
This group includes typefaces designed to appear as
Arabic
Arabic (, ' ; , ' or ) is a Semitic languages, Semitic language spoken primarily across the Arab world.Semitic languages: an international handbook / edited by Stefan Weninger; in collaboration with Geoffrey Khan, Michael P. Streck, Janet C ...
,
Chinese character
Chinese characters () are logograms developed for the Written Chinese, writing of Chinese. In addition, they have been adapted to write other East Asian languages, and remain a key component of the Japanese writing system where they are k ...
s (
Wonton font
A wonton font (also known as Chinese, chopstick, chop suey, or kung-fu) is an ethnic typeface with a visual style intended to express an Asian or Chinese aesthetic.
Styled to mimic the brush strokes used in Chinese characters, wonton fonts oft ...
s),
Cyrillic
, bg, кирилица , mk, кирилица , russian: кириллица , sr, ћирилица, uk, кирилиця
, fam1 = Egyptian hieroglyphs
, fam2 = Proto-Sinaitic
, fam3 = Phoenician
, fam4 = G ...
(
Faux Cyrillic),
Indic scripts
The Brahmic scripts, also known as Indic scripts, are a family of abugida writing systems. They are used throughout the Indian subcontinent, Southeast Asia and parts of East Asia. They are descended from the Brahmi script of ancient India ...
,
Greek
Greek may refer to:
Greece
Anything of, from, or related to Greece, a country in Southern Europe:
*Greeks, an ethnic group.
*Greek language, a branch of the Indo-European language family.
**Proto-Greek language, the assumed last common ancestor ...
(an example being
Lithos
Lithos is a glyphic sans-serif typeface designed by Carol Twombly in 1989 for Adobe Systems. Lithos is inspired by the unadorned, geometric letterforms of the engravings found on Ancient Greek public buildings. The typeface consists of only cap ...
),
Hebrew
Hebrew (; ; ) is a Northwest Semitic language of the Afroasiatic language family. Historically, it is one of the spoken languages of the Israelites and their longest-surviving descendants, the Jews and Samaritans. It was largely preserved ...
,
Kana
The term may refer to a number of syllabaries used to write Japanese phonological units, morae. Such syllabaries include (1) the original kana, or , which were Chinese characters (kanji) used phonetically to transcribe Japanese, the most pr ...
, or
Thai
Thai or THAI may refer to:
* Of or from Thailand, a country in Southeast Asia
** Thai people, the dominant ethnic group of Thailand
** Thai language, a Tai-Kadai language spoken mainly in and around Thailand
*** Thai script
*** Thai (Unicode block ...
. These are used largely for the purpose of novelty to make something appear foreign, or to make businesses offering foreign products, such as restaurants, clearly stand out. This typographic mimicry is also known as a faux font (named faux x, where x is usually a language script), pseudoscript, mimicry typeface, simulation typeface or a "foreign look" font.
Reverse-contrast typefaces
![Reverse contrast](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/0/0b/Reverse_contrast.png)
A reverse-contrast type is a typeface in which the stress is reversed from the norm: instead of the vertical lines being the same width or thicker than horizontals, which is normal in Latin-alphabet printing, the horizontal lines are the thickest.
Reverse-contrast types are rarely used for body text, and are particularly common in
display
Display may refer to:
Technology
* Display device, output device for presenting information, including:
** Cathode ray tube, video display that provides a quality picture, but can be very heavy and deep
** Electronic visual display, output devi ...
applications such as headings and posters, in which their unusual structure may be particularly eye-catching.
First seen in London in 1821, they were particularly common in the mid- to late nineteenth century in American and British printing and have been revived occasionally since then. They effectively become
slab serif
In typography, a slab serif (also called ''mechanistic'', ''square serif'', ''antique'' or ''Egyptian'') typeface is a type of serif typeface characterized by thick, block-like serifs. Serif terminals may be either blunt and angular ( Rockwell), ...
designs because of the serifs becoming thick, and are often characterised as part of that genre. In recent times, the reverse-contrast effect has been extended to other kinds of typeface, such as
sans-serif
In typography and lettering, a sans-serif, sans serif, gothic, or simply sans letterform is one that does not have extending features called "serifs" at the end of strokes. Sans-serif typefaces tend to have less stroke width variation than seri ...
designs.
Effect typefaces
![Display typefaces](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/a/a1/Display_typefaces.png)
Some typefaces have a structure that suggests a three-dimensional letter, such as letters carved into stone. An example of this is the genre known as 'inline', 'block' 'outline' or 'shadowed' typefaces. This renders the interior of glyphs in the background color, with a thin line around the edges of the glyphs. In some cases, the outline shows the glyph filled in with the foreground color, surrounded a thin outline mirroring the edges separated by a small gap. (This latter style is often used with "college" typefaces.) Colorized block lettering is often seen in carefully rendered
graffiti
Graffiti (plural; singular ''graffiti'' or ''graffito'', the latter rarely used except in archeology) is art that is written, painted or drawn on a wall or other surface, usually without permission and within public view. Graffiti ranges from s ...
.
A "shadow" effect can also be either designed into a typeface or added to an existing typeface. Designed-in shadows can be stylized or connected to the foreground. An after-market shadow effect can be created by making two copies of each glyph, slightly offset in a diagonal direction and possibly in different colors.
Drop shadow
In graphic design and computer graphics, a drop shadow is a visual effect consisting of a drawing element which looks like the shadow of an object, giving the impression that the object is raised above the objects behind it. The drop shadow is of ...
s can also be dynamically created by rendering software. The shadow effect is often combined with the outline effect, where the top layer is shown in white with black outline and the bottom layer in black, for greater contrast. An example typeface with an 'inline' effect is
Imprint Shadowed, where the shadowed version is more widely distributed than the regular design.
Small print typefaces
Some typefaces are specifically designed to be printed at small sizes, for example in telephone directories or on newsprint paper.
Bell Gothic
Bell Gothic is a sans-serif typeface in the industrial or grotesque style designed by Chauncey H. Griffith in 1938 while heading the typographic development program at the Mergenthaler Linotype Company. The typeface was commissioned by AT&T ...
and
Bell Centennial
Bell Centennial is a sans-serif typeface in the industrial or grotesque style designed by Matthew Carter in the period 1975–1978. The typeface was commissioned by AT&T as a proprietary type to replace their then current directory typeface B ...
, commissioned for telephone directories, are notable examples of this. Small-print designs often feature a large
x-height
upright 2.0, alt=A diagram showing the line terms used in typography
In typography, the x-height, or corpus size, is the distance between the baseline and the mean line of lowercase letters in a typeface. Typically, this is the height of the let ...
, and a chunky design. Some fonts used at such sizes may be members of a larger typeface family joining members for normal sizes. For example, the
Times New Roman
Times New Roman is a serif typeface. It was commissioned by the British newspaper ''The Times'' in 1931 and conceived by Stanley Morison, the artistic adviser to the British branch of the printing equipment company Monotype, in collaboration wit ...
family contains some designs intended for small print use, as do many families with optical sizes such as
Minion Places
*Minions, Cornwall, a village in the United Kingdom
People
* Frank Minion (born 1929), American jazz and bop singer
*Fred Minion, English professional footballer
*Joseph Minion (born 1957), American film director and screenwriter
*Marcus F ...
.
In the metal type era, typefaces intended to be printed small contained
ink trap
An ink trap is a feature of certain typefaces designed for printing in small sizes. At an ink trap, the corners or details are removed from the letterforms. When the type is printed, ink naturally spreads into the removed area. Without ink traps, t ...
s, small indentations at the junctions of strokes that would be filled up with ink spreading out, maintaining the intended appearance of the type design. Without ink traps, the excess ink would blob and ruin the crisp edge. At larger sizes, these ink traps were not necessary, so display faces did not have them. They have also been removed from most digital fonts, as these will normally be viewed on screen or printed through inkjet printing, laser printing, offset lithography, electrophotographic printing or other processes that do not show the ink spread of letterpress. Ink traps have remained common on designs intended to be printed on low-quality, absorbent paper, especially
newsprint
Newsprint is a low-cost, non-archival paper consisting mainly of wood pulp and most commonly used to print newspapers and other publications and advertising material. Invented in 1844 by Charles Fenerty of Nova Scotia, Canada, it usually has an ...
and telephone directories.
Texts used to demonstrate typefaces
A sentence that uses all of the alphabet (a
pangram
A pangram or holoalphabetic sentence is a sentence using every letter of a given alphabet at least once. Pangrams have been used to display typefaces, test equipment, and develop skills in handwriting, calligraphy, and keyboarding.
Origins
The ...
), such as "
The quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog
"The quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog" is an English-language pangram — a sentence that contains all the letters of the alphabet. The phrase is commonly used for touch-typing practice, testing typewriters and computer keyboards, displ ...
", is often used as a design aesthetic tool to demonstrate the personality of a typeface's characters in a setting (because it displays all the letters of the alphabet). For extended settings of typefaces graphic designers often use nonsense text (commonly referred to as ''
greeking
Greeking is a style of displaying or rendering text or symbols, not always from the Greek alphabet. Greeking obscures portions of a work for the purpose of either emphasizing form over details or displaying placeholders for unavailable content. ...
''), such as ''
lorem ipsum
In publishing and graphic design, ''Lorem ipsum'' is a placeholder text commonly used to demonstrate the visual form of a document or a typeface without relying on meaningful content. ''Lorem ipsum'' may be used as a placeholder before final c ...
'' or
Latin
Latin (, or , ) is a classical language belonging to the Italic branch of the Indo-European languages. Latin was originally a dialect spoken in the lower Tiber area (then known as Latium) around present-day Rome, but through the power of the ...
text such as the beginning of
Cicero
Marcus Tullius Cicero ( ; ; 3 January 106 BC – 7 December 43 BC) was a Roman statesman, lawyer, scholar, philosopher, and academic skeptic, who tried to uphold optimate principles during the political crises that led to the estab ...
's ''
In Catilinam
The Catilinarian Orations (; also simply the ''Catilinarians'') are a set of speeches to the Roman Senate given in 63 BC by Marcus Tullius Cicero, one of the year's consuls, accusing a senator, Lucius Sergius Catilina (Catiline), of leading a p ...
''. Greeking is used in typography to determine a typeface's ''
colour
Color (American English) or colour (British English) is the visual perceptual property deriving from the spectrum of light interacting with the photoreceptor cells of the eyes. Color categories and physical specifications of color are associ ...
'', or weight and style, and to demonstrate an overall typographic aesthetic prior to actual type setting. Another common demonstration word is "
Hamburgevons
The word Hamburgefonts (or Hamburgefonstiv or Hamburgefons or Hamburgevons) is a short piece of meaningless filler text used for assessing the design and the appearance of a typeface. It contains all essential forms in a Latin alphabet, so that t ...
".
Non-character typefaces
![Specimens of printed borders 2](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/2/20/Specimens_of_printed_borders_2.jpg)
The process of printing typefaces has historically been far simpler than commissioning and engraving custom illustrations, especially as many non-text features of printed works like symbols and borders were likely to be reused by a printer in future.
Non-character typefaces have therefore been created for elements of documents that are not letters but are likely to be reused regularly.
These include:
Ornamental typefaces
Ornamental (also known as ''novelty'' or sometimes ''display'') typefaces are used to decorate a page. Historically complex interlocking patterns known as
arabesques
The arabesque is a form of artistic decoration consisting of "surface decorations based on rhythmic linear patterns of scrolling and interlacing foliage, tendrils" or plain lines, often combined with other elements. Another definition is "Foli ...
were common in fine printing, as were floral borders known as
fleurons evoking hand-drawn manuscripts.
In the metal type era, type-founding companies often would offer pre-formed illustrations as fonts showing objects and designs likely to be useful for printing and advertisements, the equivalent of modern
clip art
Clip art (also clipart, clip-art) is a type of graphic art. Pieces are pre-made images used to illustrate any medium. Today, clip art is used extensively and comes in many forms, both electronic and printed. However, most clip art today is creat ...
and stock photographs.
As examples, the
American Type Founders
American Type Founders (ATF) Co. was a business trust created in 1892 by the merger of 23 type foundries, representing about 85% of all type manufactured in the United States. De Vinne, Theodore Low, ''The Practice of Typography,'' Century Comp ...
specimen of 1897 offered designs including baseball players, animals, Christmas wreaths, designs for
cheque
A cheque, or check (American English; see spelling differences) is a document that orders a bank (or credit union) to pay a specific amount of money from a person's account to the person in whose name the cheque has been issued. The pers ...
s, and emblems such as
state seals for government printing.
The practice has declined as printing custom illustrations and colour printing using processes such as
lithography
Lithography () is a planographic method of printing originally based on the immiscibility of oil and water. The printing is from a stone (lithographic limestone) or a metal plate with a smooth surface. It was invented in 1796 by the German a ...
has become cheaper, although illustration typefaces are still sold by some companies.
See above for the historical definition of ''display typeface''.
Symbol typefaces
![Dingbat examples](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/7/7e/Dingbat_examples.png)
Symbol, or dingbat, typefaces consist of symbols (such as decorative bullets, clock faces, railroad timetable symbols, CD-index, or TV-channel enclosed numbers) rather than normal text characters. Common, widely used symbol typeface releases include
Zapf Dingbats
ITC Zapf Dingbats is one of the more common dingbat typefaces. It was designed by the typographer Hermann Zapf in 1978 and licensed by International Typeface Corporation.
History
In 1977, Zapf created about 1000 (or over 1200 according to Lino ...
and
Wingdings
Wingdings is a series of dingbat fonts that render letters as a variety of symbols. They were originally developed in 1990 by Microsoft by combining glyphs from Lucida Icons, Arrows, and Stars licensed from Charles Bigelow and Kris Holmes. Ce ...
, though many may be created internally by a publication for its own use and some typefaces may have a symbol range included.
Marlett
Marlett is a TrueType font that has been used in Microsoft Windows since Windows 95. The operating system uses this font to create user interface icons that are used in the menus and windows. is an example of a font used by
Windows
Windows is a group of several proprietary graphical operating system families developed and marketed by Microsoft. Each family caters to a certain sector of the computing industry. For example, Windows NT for consumers, Windows Server for serv ...
to draw elements of windows and icons.
Emoji
Emoji are pictograms that can be used and displayed inline with text.
They are similar to previous symbol typefaces, but with a much larger range of characters, such as symbols for common objects, animals, food types, weather and emotions. Originally developed in Japan, they are now commonly installed on many computer and smartphone operating systems.
Following standardisation and inclusion in the
Unicode
Unicode, formally The Unicode Standard,The formal version reference is is an information technology Technical standard, standard for the consistent character encoding, encoding, representation, and handling of Character (computing), text expre ...
standard, allowing them to be used internationally, the number of Emoji characters has rapidly increased to meet the demands of an expanded range of cultures using them; unlike many previous symbol typefaces, they are interchangeable with the ability to display the pictures of the same meaning in a range of fonts on different operating systems.
The popularity of emoji has meant that characters have sometimes gained culture-specific meanings not inherent to the design.
Both colour and monochrome emoji typefaces exist, as well as at least one animated design.
Music typefaces
Typefaces that include musical notes and other needed symbols have been developed to print
sheet music
Sheet music is a handwritten or printed form of musical notation that uses List of musical symbols, musical symbols to indicate the pitches, rhythms, or chord (music), chords of a song or instrumental Musical composition, musical piece. Like ...
.
![University of California Old Style comparison](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/3/39/University_of_California_Old_Style_comparison.png)
Intellectual property
See also
Notes
References
Further reading
*
*
*
* Jaspert, W. P.; Berry, W. Turner;
Johnson, A. F. (1953, 1958, 1962, 1970, 1983, 1986, 1990, 1991, 1993, 2001, 2008). ''The Encyclopedia of Typefaces''. London: Blandford Press.
*
External links
*
Monotype printed borders specimensArchLinux list of Metric-compatible fonts
{{Authority control
Articles containing video clips
Typography
Typesetting