Type Family Classification

As a designer, you are going to work with a variey of fonts available nowadays. It's not easy to choose a font for your design. You must consider a lot of related things in choosing a suitable font for your specific artwork.

A font is itself an artwork and it takes a font designer a lot of time to build, design and make it own style and identity. Each font family reflects "a certain time of period or cultural phenomenon" to viewers. A proper use of font can contribute greatly to your works and makes them more valuabe.

Although there are thounsands of fonts nowadays for you to choose, they are all classified based on "historical evolution of type and stylistic charactristics of the letterforms". This blog is to get you to have a look at these classifications cause they're really a basic and vital philosophy about type for designers.

First, let's get familiar with some terminologies:

• typeface: a set of letterforms that have been especially designed to go together.
• type family: a category that type is classified into, based on the historical origin and physical characteristics of the letterforms.
• type style: a modified version of a typeface.
• font: a collection of all the characters of a specific typeface that are necessary for typesetting.

Now, let's see the classification in details:

1. Blackletter Typeface




This is the very old typeface style used popularly in XV century. At this time, letters are written on parchments. These letters are drew very narrowly with narrow counters. This gives the page a overall dark appearance. For this reason, it was called blackletter.





This typeface is based on handwriting styles of Gothic (German) and Celtic (Irish) medieval scribes. The letters are highly decorative. The vertical letter stems cause a strong vertical presence.

Some examples of this typeface are Cloister Black, Duc de Berry, Kelmscott, Goudy Text.

2. Humanist Typeface

There was an significant envent in 1461 in German that made a change in the printing industry. Unlike the blackletter typeface, the humanist typeface is based on the Italian handwriting style. The typeface is most more easier to read. It's called humanist because of its organic style of letterforms.Some examples of this typeface used widely nowadays are Jenson Classico, Centaur, Cloiser, Deepdence, Stratford, Souvenir, True Golden.


3. Old Style TypeFace

This typeface were known widely in XVI century as a favored typeface for printed books. It looks less calligraphic and more precise than Humanist type but still have a organic feel of Humanist typeface.



Some examples of this typeface used widely nowadays are Calson Classico, Bembo, Caxton, Grody Old Style, Original Garamond, Palatino, Times New Roman.

4. Transitional Typeface

Transitional typeface was born 200 years later after the Old Style typefaces. This was because of technological advancements in printing at this time. It s more precise than the Old Face.

Some examples of this typeface used widely nowadays are John Baskerville, Cheltenham, Cochin, Corona, Electra, Mrs. Eaves, Versailles.

5. Modern Typeface
These typeface looks more precise and mechanical than the previous one. It refects "the advancing technical capabilities of societies undergoing industrialization".

Some examples of this typeface used widely nowadays are Bodoni EF, Bernhard Modern, Craw Modern, De Vinne, Linotype Didot, Modern No 216, Walbaum.

6. Sans-serif Typeface
San-serif typefaces were used popularly in the early 20th century and known as favored ones for web or any ones that display on the monitors of the computer.



Some examples of this typeface used widely nowadays are Univers, Helvetica, Futura, Kabel, Eurostile, Gill Sans, Frutiger, Optima.

References

Tova Rabinowitz,exploring TYPOGRPHY, Thomson Demar Learning, 2006, printed in USA