So, as an example, Arial is the name of the typeface or font family, whereas Arial Regular, Arial Italic, Arial Bold, Arial Bold Italic, Arial Black, Arial Narrow and so on are the fonts available in the font family. The font used on a banner sign might be 120 pt bold while the font for a footnote in a printed document might be 8 pt italic. For example, a font used for body copy in a newspaper or magazine would generally be 10 pt regular or 12 pt regular, whereas the font for a headline would be 36 pt bold or 48 pt bold condensed. The font used will depend on a number of factors, including the size of the finished material, the purpose of the communication and the audience. Often people will use “font” instead of “typeface” or “font family” when in actual fact, a font is a particular size, weight and style of a typeface. The design of a typeface is often classified as serif, sans serif, script or decorative, but there are also various sub-groups such as old style, slab, humanistic, formal, calligraphic and grunge. For this reason, a typeface is also referred to as a “font family” and its designer will give it a specific name by which it can be recognized. The following definitions may help to differentiate between the two terms.Ī typeface is a set of fonts that share common design features and usually include a variety of weights and styles. In most designs, it’s best to stick to just two typefaces or “font families” to avoid confusion but it’s generally acceptable to use a variety of font sizes, weights and styles within those families. In a more creative design, where you’re being more artistic, you may use a second typeface or “font family” to create a different “look”. Fonts within the same typeface (in the same “font family”) all look similar because they have the same design features, but they may be a different size, weight or style.įor example, in a Word document, you tend to use the same typeface (such as Calibri) throughout, but you use a different font for your title (large, thick and bold), heading (big and bold), sub-headings (bold) and emphasis (italic), so they stand out from your paragraphs. Think of a typeface as being the family, with the same traits, and a font as being each family member, with their own style, weight or size. If you think of faces on the same side of your family (your mom, big brother, you and your baby sister), you all have similar features because you’re in the same family, but you each have your own style and probably differ in weight and size. Still confused? Here’s a way that may help. Typeface is the term given to a set of fonts in the same “font family” while a font is a particular size, weight and style of a typeface. It’s no wonder they are muddled since it is hard to define one without using the other term. I used both terms in my previous post when comparing typesetting and typography. It doesn’t help that font is used a lot in web design and for the most part, when searching online, most people use the search term “font” instead of typeface. You can read more on the MDN documentation for font and font-family.Do you know the difference between a typeface and a font? These are two terms many people mix up all the time. For example, this will set both the font size and the font family stack: font: 1.5em Georgia, Arial, sans-serif However, it is often convenient to use the shorthand font to set other related parameters such as font-size, font-weight etc in a single line. For example: font-family: Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif The font-family is used to specify the typeface only, either one, or a stack of multiple typefaces, so that there is one or more fallback choices in case of font unavailability. This comes from a How-To Geek article that explains it nicely. In summary, in common terminology, typeface (aka font) means the design, font means the file containing the typeface, and font-family means collection of related fonts. And a “font family” represents a collection of related fonts, such as bold and italic variations of the same “typeface” or “font”. So, when we say that a font is installed, we mean that the file exists in the designated location for the system. More correctly, “font” means the file on the system that represents a given typeface. Frequently, when people and user interfaces refer to “font”, they actually mean the “typeface” or artistic shape of the characters, such as Arial or Times New Roman. Let’s clarify the terminology first: "typeface" and "font" are usually used interchangeably to mean the same thing.
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