TYPEFACE CLASSIFICATION
Standards for classifying type are subject to dispute among type designers and users. Our purpose in classifying our font archives is to make finding the font you want easier. Therefore, the following is a brief explanation of how the fonts have been classified.
Serif style letters have horizontal members at their bases and often at their tops. These serifs create a flow for the eyes making reading both faster and more comfortable. Serif styles are often selected for paragraph text. Serif styles began and evolved with the invention of the printing press. A feature termed Contrast, which is the changing from thick to thin of the strokes, is commonly seen in serif type styles.
-
Old Style Serifs - Goudy Old Style, Times Roman, Berling
-
Venetian Serifs - Souvenir, Jenson, Clearface, Tiffany
-
Transitional Serifs - Bookman, Baskerville, Palatino, Garamond
-
Neo-Transitional Serifs - Joanna, Cheltenham, Goudy Modern, Cochin
-
Modern Serifs - Bodoni, Century, Fairfield, Fenice
-
Slab Serifs - Clarendon, American Typewriter, Rockwell, Egyptian
-
Wedge Serifs - Americana, Friz Quadrata, Novarese, Copperplate Gothic, Serif Gothic
- Grotesque - News Gothic, Akidenz Grotesk, Trade Gothic, Franklin Gothic
- Neo-Grotesque - Helvetica, Arial, Univers, Gill Sans, Eurostile
- Humanist - Optima, Eras, Britannic, Bodega Sans
- Geometric - Futura, Avant Garde, Kabel, Busorama
With the exception of Manuscript styles, the definition used for this section is: If it looks like it was drawn or written by a human hand .... then it is a script.
- Flowing Scripts - Commercial Script, Palace Script, Shelley Allegro
- Non-Flowing Scripts - Murray Hill Bold, Aja Script, Vivaldi
- Casual Scripts - Benguiat Frisky, Dom Casual, Flash, Jott Casual
- Fancy Scripts - Phyllis, Poppl Exquisit, Sloop Script
- Brush Scripts - Accent, Arab Brush, Bronx, Mistral, One Stroke Script
- Pen Scripts - Kaufmann, Kalligraphia, Present, Tekton, Wendy
- Specialty Scripts - Lithos, Mandarin, Raceway, Arriba
Manuscript styles are scripts but are only those styles which emulate the look of lettering before the invention of the printing press.
- Blackletter - Old English, Marriage, Linotext, Engraver's Old English, Fette Fraktur
- Uncial - American Uncial, Irish Uncial, Omnia, Neue Hammer Unziale
- Chancery - LeGriffe, Poetica, Medici Script, Zapf Chancery
- Lombardic - Bucephalus, Londonderry, Meath, Talleyrand
Headline and display styles cover a large range of possibilities. As the name implies, these styles are not intended for paragraph text. Use them for headlines, main titles and to evoke whatever feeling for which each may be useful.
FONT NAMES
The fonts shown in this archive are all first quality typestyles from legitimate type foundries using industry standard names.
All type styles belong to font families. Each typeface design is termed a member of a font family. This is true whether there is just one member or one hundred. Larger font families can be very useful in achieving a clean layout that communicates well. As you browse through some of these larger families, you may find some of the following definitions helpful:
- Roman(1)
- The primary or normal weight member of a font family.
- Roman(2)
- A serif typeface design.
- Roman(3)
- A type design with vertical orientation - not slanted or italicized.
- Regular
- The normal or primary member of a font family.
- Normal
- The normal or primary member of a font family.
- Book(1)
- The normal or primary member of a font family if Roman, Regular or Normal are not present in the family.
- Book(2)
- A separate weight of a font family if Roman, Regular or Normal are present in the family.
- Book(3)
- A separate design of a font family intended for usage in books.
- Italic
- A slanted version of a type design. In a true italic design, some characters will change such as the lower case "a". The roman version will be what is termed a double story version "a" and the italic version will be a single story "a". The term cursive is sometimes used for italic.
- Oblique
- A slanted version of a type design. Normally characters do not change although the type design has been modified by the designer for the slant and is more optically correct than applying a slant from within a graphics application. The terms slanted, sloped and others are sometimes used in place of oblique but with the same meaning.
- OsF
- Stands for Old Style Figures. This is normally a supplemental version of some members of a font family. The numerals are set to extend above and below the normal height line and base line of the font. Some characters may also change in appearance and the normal weight version is often, but not always, a small caps version as well.
- SC
- A small caps version of a font. Lower case characters are smaller capital letters. When designed correctly, the weight or boldness of the small caps is equal to that of the normal capital letters.
- If you have questions or need additional information or help, please Contact Us