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Fonts can be divided in the categories of serif and sans-serif fonts. Serifs are the small features at the end of strokes within letters. A typeface without serifs is called
sans-serif (from French sans: "without"), also referred to as
grotesque (or, in German, grotesk). See serif for etymological notes.
There is great variety among both serif and sans-serif fonts; both groups contain faces designed for setting large amounts of body text, and others intended primarily as decorative. The presence or absence of serifs is only one of many factors to consider when choosing a font.
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Sans-serif font
Serif font
Serif font
(red serifs) |
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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 fonts, at least for the text body. Web sites do not have to specify a font, they can simply respect the browser settings of the user, but of those that do, most use modern sans-serif fonts such as
Verdana, 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 computer screens. |
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Proportion |
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A font where its glyphs are displayed using varying widths is a
proportional font while one with fixed width is a
non-proportional (or monospace or fixed-width) font. |
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Proportional fonts are generally considered nicer-looking and easier to read, and thus are the most commonly used type of font in professionally published printed material. For the same reason, they are typically used in GUI computer applications, such as word processors and web browsers. However, many proportional fonts contain fixed-width figures so that columns of numbers are aligned. |
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Non-proportional fonts are better than proportional fonts for some purposes, because their characters line up in nice, neat columns. Most non-electronic typewriters and text-only computer displays use only non-proportional fonts. Most computer programs which have a text-based interface, such as terminal emulators, are configured to use only non-proportional fonts. Most computer programmers prefer to use monospace fonts. |
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ASCII art requires a non-proportional font for proper viewing. In a web page, non-proportional fonts are most commonly encountered as a result of the <pre> </pre> HTML tag. In LaTeX, non-proportional fonts are used by the verbatim environment. |
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The two lines of text in non-proportional font (should) display as equal width, while the two lines in proportional font are radically different widths. This is because wide characters' glyphs (WQZMDOHU) get more screen width and narrow characters' glyphs (itl[]1|I) get less when using a proportional font. |
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Font families |
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Since a plethora of typefaces has been created over the centuries, they are commonly categorized into
families according to their appearance. Interestingly, this categorization corresponds vaguely with the historic evolution of typefaces. |
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At the highest level, one can differentiate between blackletter,
serif, sans-serif, and decorational fonts. |
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Note: The following font samples print a sentence of patent nonsense, whose only purpose is to contain all letters of the alphabet (pangram). |
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1.Blackletter typefaces |
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Blackletter fonts were the earliest fonts used with the invention of the printing press. They resemble the artistic handwritings of cloisters in the Middle Ages and fall into three groups: |
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a} Of all the blackletter
typefaces, the Old English
ones most closely resemble the Textura
calligraphy used with manual copying of
books. A blackletter typeface was thus also
carved by Johannes Gutenberg when he printed
his 42-line Bible, including a large number
of ligatures and common abbreviations. In
the United Kingdom, blackletter type is also
called Gothic; elsewhere Gothic is
used only in its modern sense as a synonym
for sans serif. |
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b) Schwabacher typefaces were predominant in Germany from about 1480 to 1530. Most importantly, all of the works of Martin Luther, leading to the Protestant Reformation, as well as the Apocalypse of Albrecht Dürer (1498) were printed in this typeface. It was probably first used by Johannes Bämler, a printer from Augsburg, in 1472. The origins of the name are unclear; some assume that the typeface was designed by a typeface carver from the village of Schwabach who worked externally and was thus refererred to as the Schwabacher |
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c) Most commonly known among the blackletter typefaces are those of the
Fraktur family, which started when Emperor Maximilian I (1493-1519) established a series of books and had a new typeface created specifically for this purpose.
Fraktur faces were in wide use in Germany until the end of World War II; see the
Fraktur article for details. |
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2. Serif fonts |
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Serif fonts, sometimes called roman, are in turn divided into four major groups: |
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a) Renaissance (a.k.a. Garalde Oldstyle), with only slight difference in thickness within each glyph; this category includes the
Garamond and Palatino typefaces. |
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b) Baroque (a.k.a. Transitional), where the thickness within each glyph has greater variety; this category includes
Baskerville and Times Roman |
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c) Classicist (a.k.a. Didone), with the most variance of thickness within each glyph. This includes the Bodoni
and Century Schoolbook typefaces. |
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d) Modern fonts, especially those designed primarily for decorative purposes, frequently fall out of these categories. For example,
slab serif fonts such as Rockwell look artificial on purpose, with almost rectangular shapes. |
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3. Sans-serif fonts |
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Sans serif designs are a relatively recent typographical
phenomenon in the history of type
design. The first specimen appears to be the
two-line English so-called "Egyptian" font
released in 1816 by William Caslon's foundry,
England. They are commonly, but not exclusively,
used for display typography applications such as
signage, headings and other situations where clear
meaning is imperative but continuous reading is not
required.
Sans serif designs are broadly divided into 4
major groups for the purposes of type
classification:
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1. Grotesques, early sans serif designs, such as
Grotesque or Royal Gothic |
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2. Neo-grotesques, modern designs such as
Standard, Helvetica, Arial, and Univers.
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3. Humanist (Edward Johnston's
Railway type, Gill Sans or Frutiger).
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4. Geometric (Futura or
Spartan). |
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Other commonly used sans serif fonts include Optima, Tahoma and
Verdana. |
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Monochrome or with shades of grey |
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Digital bitmap fonts (and the final rendering of vector fonts) may be monochrome or with shades of grey. The latter is for the purpose of anti-aliasing and is not suitable for use in images with transparent background, except when partial transparency is applied. |
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Texts used to demonstrate typefaces |
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To demonstrate typefaces, a pangram is often used. In English typefaces, one passage commonly used since the 16th century is lorem ipsum which originated as a Latin passage from Cicero. |
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Legal aspects of typefaces |
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In the United States, typeface designs are not copyrightable, although unusually novel designs may be patentable. Digital fonts that embody a particular design are often copyrightable as computer programs. The names of the typefaces can be
trademarked. The result of these various means of legal protection is that sometimes the same typeface exists in multiple names and implementation. |
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Some elements of the software engines used to display typefaces on computers have software patents associated with them. In particular, Apple has patented some of the hinting algorithms for TrueType, requiring open source alternatives such as Freetype to use different algorithms. |
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