No doubt you have heard copywriters and designers using a variety of lingo pertaining to fonts and typography. Serif versus San-Serif is the most common discussion, especially when combining font/type styles within a design project.
To help lessen the confusion let’s introduce some basics on the different font and typography definitions and provide some visual assistance.
Serif fonts and type, also known as Slab Serif or Egyptian, contain additional details (feet, loops, hooks) on the ends of the strokes. There are four groupings of serif type: old style, transitional, modern and slab serif.
Serif type is widely used in traditional printed material such as books and newspapers. Studies of on-screen (usually referred to as fonts) use are more ambiguous, suggesting that low screen resolutions make serif fonts more difficult to read and tiring the eyes.
It is believed that the serif type originated in the Roman Alphabet when lettering was painted and chiseled into stone for signage. Around the mid 1400′s printing was introduced bringing the handset blocks of type to Linotype systems using hot lead to create strips of type. This printing technology gave rise to new designs of typefaces. Today, the selection of serif typefaces number in the thousands.
The first example people think of for a serif font or type is Times New Roman. This is the standard default font for most word processing programs and desktop publishing programs. We have included a showcase of a variety of serif font and type styles…some you may recognize but were not familiar with their names.
Allographics & Design specializes in web, graphic and social media design and consulting. If you would like to learn how we can strengthen your online branding and marketing or to book a workshop to better understand the major social media tools available for your business, contact us for more information.
Web Design and Social Branding Solutions – Oklahoma City, Oklahoma
As a designer, I do not design nor make your business’ brand. All I can do is take ideas, emotions, and concepts and transfer them into a visual representation of your brand idea. The rest is up to both you and your market.
brand using many online and social networking tools along with face to face networking.
visual flow and the divisions of space within a layout.
Logo designing is about simplicity, yet paying attention to detials. It is easy to get swept up in a fancy design with “bells” and “whistles” especially when we think of all the fun graphic effects that can be applied to online graphics. However, the base design must still work for print first and foremost, and so that is where we start.
