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In typography, a font (also fount) is traditionally defined as a complete character set of a single size and style of a particular typeface. For example, the set of all characters for 9 point Bulmer italic is a font, and the 10 point size would be a separate font, as would the 9 point regular (upright).
Since the introduction of personal computers, a broader definition has evolved. Because most computer fonts are based on fully scalable outlines, font is no longer size-specific. However, it still refers to a single style. Times New Roman regular, italic, bold and bold italic are four fonts, but one typeface.
However, the term font is also often used as a metonym for typeface.
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Etymology
The term font, a cognate of the word fondue, derives from Middle French fonte, meaning "(something that has been) melt(ed)", referring to type produced by casting molten metal at a type foundry. English-speaking printers have used the term fount for centuries to refer to the multi-part metal type used to assemble and print in a particular size and typeface.[1]
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Font characteristics
Font weight
The weight of a particular font is …
There are three basic categories of weights: light, normal, bold. There can be less weights in a typeface on the one hand and there can be finer differences, but there are not more than a total of nine font weight per typeface, three per group. Many computer fonts for office, Web and non-professional use come with a normal and a bold weight. If even this is not provided many renderers (browsers, word processors, graphic and DTP programs) support faking a bolder font by algorithmically increasing the stroke width.
Typefaces have different normal weights and therefore weight keyword in their names may differ in regard to absolute position, e.g. bold usually is at seventh position, but sometimes at the sixth.
The standard or regular font weight for most typefaces is slightly lighter than medium, i.e. in a (virtual) series of nine fonts it commonly is the fourth.
Relative order:
- thin
- ultra-light
- extra-light
- light
- semi-light = semi
- book
- normal
- regular
- (roman)
- plain
- medium
- demi = semi-bold
- bold
- extra-bold = extra
- heavy
- black
- extra-black
- ultra = ultra-black
- 100–900, e.g. CSS
- 1x–9x Frutiger
Font style
- roman (x5)
- italic (x6)
- oblique, slanted
- cursive, script, hand-written
- Blackletter, Gothic, Fraktur
(petit / small caps cf. bicameral script and unicase, number style, …)
cf. Katakana vs. Hiragana cf. Traditional Chinese vs. Simplified Chinese glyphs cf. cursive-only scripts like Arabic (although there have been reasonable proposals for real Arabic typefaces without the need for different initial, medial, final and isolated forms or ligatures)
Font width
- compressed
- condensed (x7)
- narrow
- wide
- extended
cf. letter-spacing, kerning cf. justified text alignment
Font application
- normal
- caption
- display
- subhead
- small text
Serifness
- serif, antiqua
- sans serif, grotesque
- slab serif, egyptienne
- swash
- (iconic, fantasy, graphic, flourish)
Proportion
- proportional,
- monospaced, typewriter
cf. monospaced / grid script, esp. logographic or ideographic ones cf. majuscule vs. minuscule
See also
References
- ^ "font. (n.d.). Online Etymology Dictionary". Retrieved on 2008-01-14.
- Blackwell, Lewis. 20th Century Type. Yale University Press: 2004. ISBN 0-300-10073-6.
- Fiedl, Frederich, Nicholas Ott and Bernard Stein. Typography: An Encyclopedic Survey of Type Design and Techniques Through History. Black Dog & Leventhal: 1998. ISBN 1-57912-023-7.
- Lupton, Ellen. Thinking with Type: A Critical Guide for Designers, Writers, Editors, & Students, Princeton Architectural Press: 2004. ISBN 1-5689-8448-0.
- Macmillan, Neil. An A–Z of Type Designers. Yale University Press: 2006. ISBN 0-300-11151-7.
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