Typography Style & Classification

Old Style serifs stem from the 15th century and represent the Humanist movement that deviated from Middle Age restrictions and celebrated human nature and human achievements in education, classical arts, literature, and science. More refined Old Style serifs replaced the heavy and angular Blackletter style, and initially, many letterforms were based on pen-drawn strokes.

The main characteristics of Old Style serifs include:

• A low-weight contrast between thick and thin strokes
• Horizontal crossbars
• Wedge-shaped serifs
• Left-leaning axis or stress
• Small x-heights
• Lowercase ascenders are taller than the height of capital letters
• Numerals have ascenders and descenders and vary in size^[2]

The most popular Old Style serifs are Garamond, Caslon, Goudy Old Style, and Palatino. Modern designers use them for projects to convey elegance and splendor.

As their name suggests, transitional serifs became the bridge between old-style and modern serifed typefaces. John Baskerville is considered the father of transitional serifs. In the 1750s, during his later years, the retired English manufacturer developed an interest in typography and founded a printing office in Birmingham. He made significant improvements to letterforms, which led to the creation of the Baskerville typeface, a design that strongly influenced future type development.

Key characteristics of transitional serifs include:

• A more pronounced weight contrast between thick and thin strokes
• Bracketed serifs with flat bases
• Slightly slanted head serifs
• Vertical stress in rounded lowercase letters
• Larger x-height
• Cap height that matches the height of lowercase ascenders
• Consistent numeral size

Well-known transitional serifs include Baskerville, Americana, Bulmer, and Perpetua.

Neoclassical serifs, also referred to as modern or Didone typefaces, emerged in the late 18th to early 19th century and marked a sharp break from traditional typography. The term Didone combines the surnames of typefounders Firmin Didot and Giambattista Bodoni.

Key characteristics of neoclassical serifs include:

• High contrast between thick and thin strokes
• Flat, hairline serifs
• Horizontal stress
• Small apertures
• Vertical axis

Well-known modern typefaces include Bodoni, Didot (the first Didone), Bernhard, Modern Roman, Aster, Century Schoolbook, Fenice, and Kepler.

Slab serifs were invented in the 19th century and were characterized as:

• Sturdy and block-like
• Had no evident weight contrast in strokes
• Their terminals could be either blunt and angular or rounded

With the development of printed media, slab serifs became remarkably popular. Publishers used this distinct typeface for advertising materials and book covers but rarely for body text.

Interestingly, the credit for the typeface's second name — "Egyptian" — belongs to Napoleon Bonaparte. After his Egyptian campaign, the Western world was swept by a fascination with Egyptian culture. In many European saloons, you could have encountered furniture and decor resembling the artifacts found in Egyptian tombs. At the same time, due to a marketing gimmick, Slab serifs were often called "Egyptian" even though there was no connection between this typeface and traditional Egyptian writing systems.^[3]

Popular slab serif fonts include Rockwell, Clarendon, Serifa, Courier, and Memphis.

The characteristics of glyphic serifs include triangular serifs or flared stroke ends that resemble characters engraved into metal or stone rather than hand-drawn letterforms. Among other typeface attributes, there is low weight contrast between thin and thick strokes and the vertical axis of curved strokes.

Some glyphic serifs can be considered almost serifless, such as in Epigraph. Other glyphic serifs include Trajan Pro, Saturnia, Monumenta Pro, Orpheus Pro, and English Engravers Roman.

Grotesque typefaces appeared in the 19th and the first decades of the 20th century. Those early sans-serif typefaces were characterized by awkward weight distribution and irregular curves. For example, glyphs had obvious stroke contrast, and the uppercase G and R had a spur. Early grotesque typefaces included Franklin Gothic, Monotype Grotesque, and Schelter Grotesk.

Over the 19th century, the style became more sleek, refined, and sophisticated. The neo-grotesques took these typefaces to a new level. Letterforms became more simplistic and lost irregular variations in line weight.

1957 was a big year for neo-grotesque sans serifs — the immortal Helvetica was released. Other typefaces of this category include MS Sans Serif, Arial, Bell Gothic, Bell Centennial, and Univers.

As the name indicates, geometric sans serifs have simple, modern, geometric forms. They appeared in the early 1920s and have become widely popular for headlines, logos, and packaging but were rarely seen for body text. Although geometric sans serifs have a remarkably simple form, they're less legible than grotesques.

You can recognize these letterforms by straight, monolinear lines, perfect circular "o" glyphs, geometric bowls of "a" and "p," and little or no stroke contrast.

Among geometric sans serifs, you can find Avenir, ITC Bauhaus, Futura, Montserrat, and Harmonia Sans.

Humanistic sans serifs have a calligraphic influence that they borrowed from Roman letterforms and early serif typefaces instead of early Grotesques. Due to such attributes as a low to medium stroke contrast, vertical axis, large, open counters, these typefaces are considered the most legible sans serifs.

Older typefaces like Gill Sans and Frutiger and the more recent Myriad, Trebuchet, and Calibri belong to this category.

Scripts originate from handwriting or pointed pen calligraphy. Due to their elegant, refined look, scripts were commonly used for display purposes in trade printing, invitations, and diplomatic papers but rarely for body text.

Scripts can be split into two categories: formal and casual scripts. Formal scripts are based on the letterforms of 17th and 18th-century handwriting masters such as George Bickham, George Shelley, and George Snell. The main typeface characteristics include fine and thick connecting strokes between letters and decorative, flowery extensions conveying a rather diplomatic, distinguished, and refined feeling.

Casual script fonts feature brush-like strokes and flowing design flairs. This style emerged in the mid-20th century and gained widespread popularity in commercial design using script-style fonts.

Calligraphic scripts mimic calligraphy where a flat-tipped pen or brush is usually used. They may or may not have joined letters and occasionally include the drips, spots, blotches, and other imperfections common in hand-drawn letters.

Due to their special human touch, calligraphic typefaces convey a friendly, positive feeling that serves well for marketing purposes.

Blackletter scripts, also known as Gothic script, Gothic minuscule, or Textura, originated in the 12th century in Western Europe and became the base font for the Gutenburg Bible. This is probably one of the most recognizable typefaces due to the extreme contrast between thin and thick strokes, tall, narrow, angular shapes, intricate swirls on the serifs, and dense text type style.

With the development of printing, blackletters became less popular and remained only in Germany and German-speaking countries. Later on, German typographers created new sans serif typefaces that were far more legible and suitable for printing. In 1933, when Nazis came to power, they declared Blackletter scripts (Fraktur in particular) to be the people's font, and other typefaces were forbidden. Fraktur was used up until 1941 and then was replaced with more readable typefaces.^[4]

The modern blackletter typefaces available that can add a medieval look to your designs include Textura, Agincourt, Cresci Rotunda, Schwabacher, Cursiva, and Bastarda.

Casual scripts appear less traditional than formal scripts, carrying a more joyful attitude as though a friend has quickly jotted you a note. In contrast to formal scripts, their strokes aren't necessarily connected and often appear as if have been written by wet brush rather than a pen nib.

Typographers usually work with casual scripts for ads, brochures, and other marketing materials that require an intimate, informal look.

Decorative typefaces do not fit into any other classification. They may include ornaments, textures, shapes, dimensions, and proportions to deliver a certain mood or illustrate a specific topic. Decorative typefaces allow typographers to unleash their creativity and create the most extravagant, unorthodox variations. Such typefaces should only be used in larger point sizes for headlines, posters, and billboards, or for special occasions.

In contrast to proportional typefaces, where different letters have different widths, monospace typefaces have the same width for each letter. For example, the thin letter "l" will take the same amount of space as the wide "W." Text written in monospace typefaces are reminiscent of those typed on manual typewriters, and designers can use them to add a retro feeling to their projects.

One of the advantages of this type is that each letter occupies the same amount of horizontal space. For that reason, these typefaces are widely used in programming so that developers can easily spot mistakes in code. On the other hand, monospace typefaces take up more space than proportional typefaces, and long stretches of monospace text can tangle together visually and appear much harder to read.^[5]