Guide to Typefaces

(img src: Jeremy Brooks)

As mentioned in my older post (read here), there are many different kinds of typefaces. Each falls in different values of legibility and readability. Typographers spend hours and days to design amazing typefaces and it would be a shame to use them inappropriately. This is a basic guideline to typography styles that will help you identify and categorize fonts. This will help you organize your workspace much more efficiently. Let’s get started!

Typeface Style

Each font falls into one or more categories. These categories help designers organize fonts by their attributes and in doing this, it makes finding fonts much more efficient. There are tons of different categories but we are going to explore the most popular and basic ones: Sans-Serif, Serif, Slab Serif, Script, Display, Blackletter, Gaelic, and Dingbats.

Sans-Serif

Sans Serifs are the fonts that do not have serifs on the end of the strokes. This font comes with other names such as Doric, Grotesque, and Gothic. A distinguishable characteristic of a sans-serif font other than the lack of serif is its even stroke weight across the type. The weight of the lines in a sans-serif font has no or very little difference.

Sans serif fonts are easy to read on screen so they are often used as body text fonts on websites. This is also the reason why most of the web safe fonts are sans serifs. They are not as effective on printed media and instead used on headings, titles, or smaller groups of texts.

Serif

Serif fonts have the little strokes at the end of the main stroke of the letter. Serifs are sometimes described as “hooks” or “feet” at ends of the letters.

Serifs were created to make reading through a large body of text easier on printed texts. This is the reason why newspapers and books are usually printed in serif fonts. However, serif fonts are not effective on screen (in large texts) because serif typefaces have different stroke weights across a character. Due to the specificity of how we see fonts on the screen, these weight differences causes them to look blurry when presented in small sizes.

Script

Script typefaces has the similar appearance and fluidity of a handwriting. They are also called Handwritten and Cursive fonts.

Script fonts have two main sub-categories: Formal and Casual. Formal fonts have elegant smooth curves and are usually used in special occasions such as weddings and graduations. Casual fonts are much looser and have a more natural handwritten look.

Display

Display typefaces’ key feature is the size of the font. It usually refers to the use of any type in large sizes. However, some fonts are designed mainly for display purposes. These typefaces are mainly used for advertising purposes.

Display fonts have a very low readability which makes it very effective for headlines, titles, and any body of text that is meant to be displayed in a large scale.

Blackletter

Blackletter typefaces are based on the handwritten letters in early manuscripts like the Guthenberg Bible (one of the first books printed). It is a stylized font that was popular in Western Europe from the 12th to 17th century. Blackletter’s key features are its elaborate mix of thin and thick strokes with decorative swirls.

Blackletter typefaces have very low legibility and should not be used in large body of text. They often used as an alternative to formal script fonts for special occasion. Blackletter fonts can also be considered as a display typeface.

Dingbats

Dingbats are originally ornaments, symbols, shapes and small images that are used in letterpress as spacers and decorations for printed media. Today, it has been borrowed to describe a typeface style. Dingbats are fonts that have images and symbols that are assigned to the keyboard letters.

Dingbats can be used as dividers or illustrations for printed works. Because they are images, they are best presented in a larger font size.

And that’s it! These are simply the most popular and the main categories in typefaces. There are many other categories and sub-categories of fonts and as type designers get more innovative, the more categories are created.

In designing, it is important to use these different font in an effective way and that can sometimes mean mixing typefaces with different attributes together. Which is your favourite typeface category pairing?

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