Font Classification

[Rodi]

Hey all,
I love fonts! I have been involved with fonts since the 1970's, starting out with setting headlines on a Berthold Superstar (I still love Berthold fonts) on reels of 2" film. Most of the Fonts were from a film-o-type house in Skokie Illinois from the 1930's-1970's. I can still smell the combination of fixer and developer, Y U C K. Hand kerning is an art, which I still appreciate., yet see very seldom.

I know a lot of sign folks use Gerber names and others use Corel/Bistream names and others use Lino-Adobe namses for fonts but becasue of the nature of the font business, they are less than accurate at times.

I forgot where I found this, but it is excellent for the task of font classification.

The type classification scheme suggested in 1954 by Maximilien Vox into nine categories (in French): manuaire, humane, garalde, réale, didone, mécane, linéale, incise, scripte. ATypI proposed the addition of two more, (in French) fractur and orientale, to get eleven styles. See also here. English translation of that French list by Paul Hunt. Invented by Maximilien Vox in 1952, it was adopted in 1962 by the Association International Typographique (ATypI). Quoted from that English translation, with corrections:

* The humanists: Humanist typefaces gathers the first character Romans created with the 15th century faces by the Venetian printers, taking as a starting point the the humanistic manuscripts of the time. These typefaces, rather round in opposition to the Gothics of the Middle Ages, are characterized by short and thick serifs, and a weak contrast between full and untied. These typefaces are inspired in particular by the Carolingian miniscule, imposed by Charlemagne in his empire.

* The garaldes: This group is named in homage to Claude Garamond (16th century) and Aldus Manutius. The garaldes have fier proportions finer than the humanists, and a stronger contrast between downstroke and upstroke.

* The realists (réales): The realists are the result of the will of Louis XIV to invent new typographical forms, on the one hand to find a successor in the Garamond, on the other hand to compete in quality with different the printers from Europe. More contrast than in the previous two groups, the types are more rational and the axis is quasi-vertical.

* The didones: The didones are named after Didot and Bodoni. These typefaces, dating from the end of the 18th and the beginning of the 19th century, recognizable thanks to their great contrast, the verticality of the characters and their horizontal and fine footings. They correspond to the Didot of Thibaudeau's classification.

* the mécanes: The name of this group evokes the very mechanical aspect of these types, which are characteristic of the industrial age, the middle of the 19th century. There is almost no contrast, and rectangular slabs hold up the characters. These are also called slab serifs or egyptians.

* The lineals: This group combines all typefaces without serifs (called sans-serif). These correspond to the antiques of the Thibaudeau classification.

* The incised types: evoking the engraving in stone or metal. Snmall and triangular footings, almost like sans-serifs.

* The scripts: The scripts cover types based on formal penmanship. They seem to be written with the quill, with a strong slope. The letters can often be connected to eachother. The famous English typefaces form part of this family.

* The manuaires: the manuaires are based upon letters traced with a feather.

* The blackletters: also called gothic, these typefaces are characterized by pointed and angular forms.

* The non-Latin typefaces.


I know this is kind of dry, but I would like to propose getting a list of fonts that fit in to each catagory, with some heated debate of course!

Future pieces I would like to do will be the ever fascinating Photo-Lettering company, font piracy (did they pirate that or is it a revival?), Font creation from Guttenberg to FontStudio (I should put Fontlab, but I love FontStudio from Letraset), how segements of the graphic arts develop and have used fonts. Also founderies, a type dictionary, measurements, why fonts of the same size are not the same size, etc etc.

More to come, God willing!

 

[Fred Weiss]

I'll offer this up as a supplement and a reply. I have read the Rookledge International TypeFinder from cover to cover and like the way he chose to classify fonts. While his approach has not been adopted by aTypI, it still is followed by many.

Typeface Classification
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Standards for classifying type are subject to dispute among type designers and users. Our purpose in classifying fonts is to make creative selection and identification of the font we want easier. The following is a brief explanation of how we classify fonts and examples of common fonts within each classification and sub-classification.

Serif style letters have horizontal members at their bases and often at their tops. These serifs create a flow for the eyes making reading both faster and more comfortable. Serif styles are often selected for paragraph text. Serif styles began and evolved with the invention of the printing press. A feature termed Contrast, which is the changing from thick to thin of the strokes, is commonly seen in serif type styles.

Sub-Classifications of Serif Type Faces with Examples

• Old Style Serifs - Goudy Old Style, Times Roman, Berling
• Venetian Serifs - Souvenir, Jenson, Clearface, Tiffany
• Transitional Serifs - Bookman, Baskerville, Palatino, Garamond
• Neo-Transitional Serifs - Joanna, Cheltenham, Goudy Modern, Cochin
• Modern Serifs - Bodoni, Century, Fairfield, Fenice
• Slab Serifs - Clarendon, American Typewriter, Rockwell, Egyptian
• Wedge Serifs - Americana, Friz Quadrata, Novarese, Copperplate Gothic, Serif Gothic

Sans serif letters do not have serifs and are considered by many to be as legible and useful as serif styles. Sans serif styles first appeared in the nineteenth century. Most sans serif styles are monolined and do not have as much contrast in their strokes as do serif styles.

Sub-Classifications of Sans Serif Type Faces with Examples

• Grotesque - News Gothic, Akidenz Grotesk, Trade Gothic, Franklin Gothic
• Neo-Grotesque - Helvetica, Arial, Univers, Gill Sans, Eurostile
• Humanist - Optima, Eras, Britannic, Bodega Sans
• Geometric - Futura, Avant Garde, Kabel, Busorama

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With the exception of Manuscript styles discussed next, the definition used for this section is: If it looks like it was drawn or written by a human hand .... then it is a script.

Sub-Classifications of Script Type Faces with Examples

• Flowing Scripts - Commercial Script, Palace Script, Shelley Allegro
• Non-Flowing Scripts - Murray Hill Bold, Aja Script, Vivaldi
• Casual Scripts - Benguiat Frisky, Dom Casual, Flash, Jott Casual
• Fancy Scripts - Phyllis, Poppl Exquisit, Sloop Script
• Brush Scripts - Accent, Arab Brush, Bronx, Mistral, One Stroke Script
• Pen Scripts - Kaufmann, Kalligraphia, Present, Tekton, Wendy
• Specialty Scripts - Lithos, Mandarin, Raceway, Arriba

Manuscript styles are scripts but are only those styles which emulate the look of lettering before the invention of the printing press.

Sub-Classifications of Manucript Type Faces with Examples

• Blackletter - Old English, Marriage, Linotext, Engraver's Old English, Fette Fraktur
• Uncial - American Uncial, Irish Uncial, Omnia, Neue Hammer Unziale
• Chancery - LeGriffe, Poetica, Medici Script, Zapf Chancery
• Lombardic - Bucephalus, Londonderry, Meath, Talleyrand

Headline and display styles cover a large range of possibilities so no examples are provided here. As the name implies, these styles are not intended for paragraph text. Use them for headlines, main titles and to evoke whatever feeling for which each may be useful.

Font Names and Nomenclature
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Fonts from legitimate type foundries use industry standard names. Cloned or copied fonts use non-standard names in order to circumvent U.S. trademark and copyright laws and to avoid paying of licensing fees or royalties to the original designer or current owner of the typeface design.

All type styles belong to font families. Each typeface design is termed a member of a font family. This is true whether there is just one member or one hundred. Larger font families can be very useful in achieving a clean layout that communicates well. As you browse through some of these larger families, you may find some of the following definitions helpful:

Roman(1) - The primary or normal weight member of a font family.

Roman(2) - A serif typeface design.

Roman(3) - A type design with vertical orientation - not slanted or italicized.

Regular - The normal or primary member of a font family.

Normal - The normal or primary member of a font family.

Book(1) - The normal or primary member of a font family if Roman, Regular or Normal are not present in the family.

Book(2) - A separate weight of a font family if Roman, Regular or Normal are present in the family.

Book(3) - A separate design of a font family intended for usage in books.

Italic - A slanted version of a type design. In a true italic design, some characters will change such as the lower case "a". The roman version will be what is termed a double story version "a" and the italic version will be a single story "a". The term cursive is sometimes used for italic.

Oblique - A slanted version of a type design. Normally characters do not change although the type design has been modified by the designer for the slant and is more optically correct than applying a slant from within a graphics application. The terms slanted, sloped and others are sometimes used in place of oblique but with the same meaning.

Weight - Any variation from the normal stroke of a font such as bold, black or light.

OsF - Stands for Old Style Figures. This is normally a supplemental version of some members of a font family. The numerals are set to extend above and below the normal height line and base line of the font. Some characters may also change in appearance and the normal weight version is often, but not always, a small caps version as well.

SC - A small caps version of a font. Lower case characters are smaller capital letters. When designed correctly, the weight or boldness of the small caps is equal to that of the normal capital letters thus creating a balanced, eye-pleasing result.
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