Contents

Type Classification

With thousands of typefaces in existence today, a system for classifying them is essential. Any font can be categorized as a member of eleven groups: Venetian, Garalde, Transitional, Didone, Slab Serif, Sans Serif, Glyphic, Script, Display, Blackletter, and Symbol. However, for practical purposes these categories can be reduced to just the five most common descriptive classes:

Serif Fonts:

Generally used for body copy and longer blocks of text. This example is Times New Roman®. The small detail strokes or "feet" crossing the main strokes on letters like the uppercase "T" are called serifs (rhymes with "tariff"). They form a visual link between letters to help lead the eye across a line of type.

Sans Serif Fonts:

Generally used for headlines and shorter blocks of text. This example is Arial®. Notice there are no serifs, hence the name sans serif (literally "without serifs"). Considered more legible in headings but harder to read in long blocks since the eye has to work harder moving across the line with no serifs to guide it.

Script Fonts:

Generally used wherever a handwritten look, from casual to formal, is desired. This example is Brush Script. Script fonts are considered difficult to read and should be used sparingly, only a few lines at a time.

Display Fonts:

Generally used for special purpose headlines or anywhere an "attention grabber" is needed. Display fonts may also be called "Decorative," "Headline," "Novelty," or "Specialty" fonts. This example is QTGhoulFace from QualiType.

Symbol Fonts:

Fonts composed of decorative marks, bullets or other small graphics known as "dingbats" or "printer's flowers." Also sometimes called "Specialty" or "Pi" fonts. These characters are from the Wingdings® font included with Windows.

Diagram of Character Parts

To be able to identify and discuss fonts, it helps to be familiar with the terms for describing various parts of letters.

Ascender
The part of a lowercase letter such as "b" "d" "f" or "h" that extends above the height of the lowercase "x"

Ascender Height
A guideline to define the height of ascenders

Bar
The horizontal line across letters like the "A" "H" and "e"

Baseline
A guideline to define the bottom of characters

Bowl
Curved stroke to define an enclosed or partially enclosed space of a character

Cap Height
A guideline to define the top of uppercase letters

Counter
Enclosed space within a character like the "e" "o" or "P"

Crossbar
A bar dividing across a letter like in the lowercase "f" or "t"

Descender
The part of a lowercase letter such as "g" "p" or "y" that extends below the baseline

Descender Line
A guideline to define the bottom of descenders

Ear
Small stroke extending from the top of a letter

Link
A stroke connecting the top and bottom of a lowercase letter

Loop
Curved stroke as in the lower portion of the lowercase "g"

Mixing Fonts in Your Documents

To support, emphasize and augment a typeset message, you may want to use different fonts for headlines, body text, and other elements on a page. There are three basic approaches to consider in this decision:

Use the Same Font

When you want a conservative, traditional look, use the same typeface all throughout your document. This has the indirect effect of making the type itself invisible, so it does not influence your message. The key to effectively using the same font throughout a document is to change the weight, size, and/or spacing among elements.

For example, you might use bold italic for captions and a larger point size for headlines. Because the typeface is the same, just in a different size or style, the effect is to draw the reader's eye from headline to text to captions. The danger here is that the separate elements will not appear different enough, or that the overall uniformity of the page will cause your readers to become bored (or - worse - to not read your words at all).

Use Contrasting Fonts

The next level is to use fonts that contrast one another. A general rule of thumb is to use a serif font for body copy and a sans serif font for headlines. For example, a large, bold headline typeface can attract a reader's attention but play against a smaller, softer, more inviting text font. This technique is used often in advertising.

In addition, if your page has very heavy text content, you can use bold drop caps, subheads, or even graphics to break up the space. Try to divide any imposing blocks of gray type into smaller units that invite the eye. If necessary, rewrite your text to divide it into smaller blocks or include some extra subheads.

Use Similar Fonts

Use similar fonts with each other when you want an overall smoothness of typographic "color," but feel that the document also needs some visual differentiation. This can be difficult to achieve, however, because similar fonts are the hardest to mix successfully.

For example, Times New Roman® and Palatino® are similar in ways that make them clash. Times New Roman has a large x-height and looks very mechanical, while Palatino is more script-like, with a smaller x-height and more open counters. Using these two fonts together looks disorderly, as if you ran out of Times New Roman halfway through the project and had to finish with the next best thing.

However, with careful testing and a trained eye, it is possible to mix similar fonts successfully. A heavy or "square" sans serif font might work well with a similar but more delicate or condensed sans serif font. Or a slight difference in design, assisted by another subtle difference in style or weight, may make an attractive combination.

Because typefaces have "personalities," you have to match them the same way as people. If two fonts have nothing in common they may clash, but if they have too much in common they are likely to hate each other too! Each must complement the other. Making a design decision like this is an artistic task, requiring patience and trial and error. As you work with your type, experiment and talk about it with others. Learn the rules, but don't be afraid to try breaking them as you gain confidence in your own aesthetic judgment and decision-making ability.

"Top 10 Tips" for Good Typography

Using type effectively is a complicated skill that can take years to master. It is a far broader subject than can be adequately covered in this short Web article, but these Top 10 Tips are a good place to start learning. Apply these tips to your own work and your type will immediately look better!

Always type only one space after a period or any punctuation that separates two sentences. Typing two spaces is a habit left over from the days of typewriters and monospaced fonts. With computer-based, proportional fonts it is no longer necessary to insert the extra space.

Don't underline, use italics instead. Underlining is another habit left over from typewriters. Underlines were originally proofreader's marks that signified "italics." If you don't want to use italics, try making the text bold, a bit larger, or even use a different font. Or if you really want to underline something, use a graphic rule instead of the underlining function.

Always use true "curly" quotation marks and apostrophes, not the "straight up and down" inch and foot characters on the keyboard. Curly quote characters are available as part of the Windows ANSI extended character set, in most high-quality fonts, at positions 0145, 0146, 0147, and 0148. See the Character Map utility that comes with Windows for additional information on extended characters.

Always make the space before an italic word (but not the space after it) italic as well. Since italic fonts slant to the right and usually take up less space than non-italic fonts, sometimes the space before the italic word looks a bit too large. Italicizing the space with the word makes it smaller, correcting the problem.

Never use all capital letters in body text and only rarely in headlines. All caps is hard to read because much of the variation in shape that helps the eye distinguish between letters is lost. Also, never set an ornate or script font in all capitals under any circumstances!

Avoid too many hyphenations in any paragraph, and never have more than two hyphenations in a row. Try left-aligning the text, rewording, adjusting letter or word spacing, widening the margins, kerning, or even adding spaces before the hyphenated word to move the whole word to the next line.

Always either indent the first line of paragraphs or add extra space between them, but don't do both. The indent should normally be equal to about one em, or roughly two space characters (but use tabs, not spaces, and remember that the first paragraph after a heading or subheading is NOT indented). For space between paragraphs, an entire extra carriage return is often too much. If your software has a feature to automatically adjust the space between paragraphs, set it to add space equal to about half a linespace.

Spend the time to manually adjust kerning pairs, especially in headlines. Well-kerned text is totally dependent on your eye, not the computer. The most important thing is to create visually consistent letterspacing, and the larger the letters, the more critical it is to adjust their spacing. Trust your judgment.

Try to keep line lengths to about 50 characters for maximum readability. As a general rule of thumb, an average line of type set in a serif font should be about ten words long, and sans serif lines should be a little shorter, about eight or nine words.

Never leave any widows or orphans on a page. A "widow" is a single word on a line, all by itself, at the end of a paragraph and an "orphan" is the first or last word or line of a paragraph, stranded at the bottom or top of a column. Rewrite the text, adjust letter spacing, or adjust margins.