In the metal type era, a font also meant a specific point size, but with digital scalable outline fonts this distinction is no longer valid, as a single font may be scaled to any size.

Therefore, a given typeface, such as Times, may be rendered by different fonts, such as computer font files created by this or that vendor, a set of metal type characters etc. the software) that allows you to use a set of characters with a given appearance, whereas a typeface is the actual design of such characters. Font families typically include several fonts, though some, such as Helvetica, may consist of dozens of fonts.Īnother way to look at the distinction between font and typeface is that a font is the vessel (e.g. For example, Times is a font family, whereas Times Roman, Times Italic and Times Bold are individual fonts making up the Times family. A font family is typically a group of related fonts which vary only in weight, orientation, width, etc., but not design. The design of characters in a font took into account all these factors.Īs the range of typeface designs increased and requirements of publishers broadened over the centuries, fonts of specific weight (blackness or lightness) and stylistic variants (most commonly regular or roman as distinct to italic, as well as condensed) have led to font families, collections of closely related typeface designs that can include hundreds of styles. Historically, fonts came in specific sizes determining the size of characters, and in quantities of sorts or number of each letter provided. For example, 8-point Caslon Italic was one font, and 10-point Caslon Italic was another. In professional typography, the term typeface is not interchangeable with the word font (originally 'fount' in British English, and pronounced 'font'), because the term font has historically been defined as a given alphabet and its associated characters in a single size. There are typefaces tailored for special applications, such as cartography, astrology or mathematics. Roman uppercase A looks the same as Cyrillic uppercase А and Greek uppercase alpha. The same glyph may be used for characters from different scripts, e.g. In digital typography, type designers are sometimes also called font developers or font designers.Įvery typeface is a collection of glyphs, each of which represents an individual letter, number, punctuation mark, or other symbol. Designers of typefaces are called type designers and are often employed by type foundries. The art and craft of designing typefaces is called type design. There are thousands of different typefaces in existence, with new ones being developed constantly. Each of these variations of the typeface is a font. Printed by William Caslon, letter founder from the 1728 Cyclopaedia.Ī typeface is the design of lettering that can include variations in size, weight (e.g. A Specimen, a broadsheet with examples of typefaces and fonts available.

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