While one could find examples of writing without serifs before the discovery of the Rosetta Stone, that’s when sans-serif fonts rocketed into the public’s and printers’ consciousness. Serifs that are as thick (or almost as thick) as the glyph’s primary strokes are slab serifs-think about the typefaces you might find on early 20th-century typewriters. Bye, stroke contrast, hello standardized widths. Modern serif fonts have the largest differences between stroke widths-a striking look but taxing to read for too long and non-ideal for print applications. Possibly the most common kind of serif font, you’ll recognize it’s very pervasive member, Times New Roman. This transitional phase of serif typefaces features more size contrast between thick and thin strokes and are less evocative of handwritten text. These fonts have their thinnest portions on the part of the glyphs that would be a diagonal stroke. These fonts are exactly what they sound like: Exemplary of the earliest attempts at standardized typefaces, specifically designed to mimic handwritten text. Serif fonts can be organized into subtypes: And that’s how typefaces stayed for quite a while. To endear the new technology to the masses, typefaces were designed with serifs. Their size and shape were largely dependent on where the letter was in a word and their writing momentum.įast forward to Guttenberg’s printing press. When early (early, early, early) writing was done with angled or other sharp-tipped implements, small marks-almost like feet-were left behind be the writer. Powerpoint empowers you to develop well-designed content across all your devices Learn More But with them it’s more forgiving if they don’t show so much visual variety since they are more aimed towards “perfect” writing.Tell your story with captivating presentations And by the way, the caveat also applies to Script fonts. I recommend the fonts by Liebe Fonts for this handwritten touch, like Liebe Heide or Supermarker (used in the example above). The letters don’t repeat within the word, this creates a more realistic image. On the second line contextual alternates and ligatures are activated. The first line should be handwritten? No way, José! It is set in Supermarker, but alternate characters and ligatures are turned off, so both n and t look the same. Because the whole point of using these fonts is to make it seem authentic, and then you destroy it by making it obvious that it not. This might seem like a subtle thing, but our brains get that something is off. Pick a font that has plenty of alternate characters, so not every repeating letter within a word looks the same. Typefaces all have their own appeal in a given situation, and you will have to decide if it truly fits the project and circumstances, or not.Ī big caveat for this category – good handwritten fonts are rare. Better think about what mood a font creates and for what sort of text it fits best.įind your own language, and take the attributes I connect with these categories with a grain of salt. Things are not linear and a rigid categorization will not work (if it ever has). In today’s digital world, type designers mix and blend influences from all over the place. ![]() Sans-serif fonts (left) appear simple and have a monoline structure, serif fonts (center) have decorative tails or taper (aka serifs) and contrasting strokes, slab serif fonts (right) have thick, striking serifs.ĭon’t waste time overthinking if a font belongs to this or that category. While the first three (sans-serif, serif, and slab serif) are pretty straight forward, easier to distinguish, and might be suitable for all kinds of text, the latter three (script, handwritten, and display fonts) get fuzzy and should only be applied for display text. This categorization is an orientation point. ![]() With some adoptions MyFonts, Adobe Fonts, or Google Fonts divide their fonts in the following categories (click on them, to jump to the section directly): To make this as related to practice as possible, I oriented on a very rough classification that popular font catalogs use as well. Knowing what broad categories of typefaces exist and what feelings they evoke, can be a handy tool to dig through the tons of available fonts out there. ![]() Eventually you have to find your own typographic vocabulary. Script, handwritten and display fonts mostly work for short and large applications, and are more striking and thematic. Sans is perceived more modern, serif more traditional, slab serif can be both. Sans-serif, serif and slab serif typeface can work for all sorts of text. TL DR: Categorizing type is hard and only helpful to a certain degree.
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