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Different Types of Type
6:42Type comes in many different shapes and sizes, each with its own voice and personality. We’ll explore a few typefaces along with their letterforms to see the genres recognized today.
In this part of the stage, we're going to
be looking at different classifications or
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types of Typefaces.
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You might be wondering, why is this
important?
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Can't I just find something I like and use
it?
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I'm glad you asked.
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Knowing your different type genres and
what makes them tick will help you
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choose a proper Typeface for the projects
at hand and make you a better designer.
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For instance, if you're working with
clients who want the mood of
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a site to convey eloquence, you need to
know what classes or
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styles of Typefaces lean towards that
bent.
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Or, if you're designing a site that's
heavily influenced by
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a certain time period, you should utilize
a Typeface that would have been
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appropriate to the genres at that time.
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As I mentioned earlier, Typefaces have a
mood or a personality.
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The way the letter forms look conveys a
message to the reader.
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Knowing these genres will help us see how
our type is talking, and
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what makes them distinct.
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So without further ado, let's dive in.
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Type has been classified in different ways
over the years.
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But for simplicity sake, and because our
focus for
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this course will be on web typography,
we'll look at three major genres.
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Serif, Sans Serif, and Scripts, along with
their sub-genres.
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Up first, we'll look at Serif Typefaces.
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Like we learned from our terminology,
Typefaces can have serifs on their
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letter forms and this would place them
within serif genre.
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Simple enough, but within this genre we
have a number of
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nuances that will set apart different
serifs into sub-genres.
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The sub-genres we'll be covering are
Humanist, Old Style,
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Transitional, Didone, and Slab.
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After the invention of the printing press
in 1450,
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logically, the creation of Typefaces
shortly followed.
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Humanist typefaces arose in the 1460's and
1470's with strong calligraphic influence.
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Printers were creating Typefaces based on
the strokes of
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a pen when drawing letter forms.
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They tend to have diagonal stress, lower
stroke contrast, and
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relatively small x-height.
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Their serifs are not as refined.
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Humanist Typefaces are not as common
today, but
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some examples of these are Janson,
Kennerley and Centaur.
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Old Style came about next in the later
part of the 15th century.
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The letter forms were getting more refined
as type and
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less influenced from calligraphy.
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We see less diagonal stress happening and
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the serifs have also changed to be more
wedge-like.
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These lasted two centuries strong.
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Some examples include Goudy Old Style,
Palatino, Perpetua and Plantin.
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This brings us to the 18th century where
we see transitional Typefaces on the rise.
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The trend of decreasing calligraphic flow
continues.
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And here we have vertical stress, thinner
and
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flatter serifs along with exaggerated
contrast between thicks and thins.
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Some examples include Baskerville,
Bookman, and Clearface (ITC).
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Next, we have the Didones arriving in the
late 18th century.
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The influence of the pen is really nowhere
to be found.
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The serifs have become even thinner
without any sign of bracketing.
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Contrast is taken to the extreme with
thick verticals and
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ultra thin horizontals.
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You might regard these Typefaces as
reminiscent of high fashion culture.
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They work great at large sizes, with ample
amount of white space around them.
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But as body copy at small sizes, their
serifs and
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horizontals can quickly get lost.
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Some examples include Bodoni and Didot.
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Now, we'll head into the opposite
direction with Slab Serifs who have
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extremely thick, slab-like serifs and low
contrast.
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These came about in the early 19th
Century.
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And were heavily influenced for
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headlines in advertising because of their
bold, look at me appearance.
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Most of these are utilized at large sizes,
but
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a few have been known to also work well at
small sizes.
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Some examples of these include, Rockwell,
Clarendon, Egyptienne, and Centinnel.
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Next, let's move into the new genre of San
Serifs.
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These Typefaces do not have serifs on
their letter forms or
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literally are without serifs.
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We'll look at the Grotesque,
Neo-Grotesque, Humanist, and Geometrics.
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In the late 19th century, we see the rise
of Grotesque San Serifs.
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Though we see san serifs as completely
normal today.
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Don't forget there wasn't much of a
reference for them when they came about.
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The design of an earlier one,
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Akzidenz-Grotesk, has actually been
theorized to be derived from Didot
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because the Typefaces have similar metrics
when the serifs from Didot are removed.
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As we'll see in other genres, sans serifs
are typically low contrast.
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Some examples of Grotesque also include
Franklin Gothic.
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The Neo-Grotesque then arises,
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refining some of the peculiarities in
early grotesques.
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These are some of the more common sans
serifs and Helvetica fits right in there.
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Although there's a desire for simplicity
here,
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there aren't always great candidates for
body copy because the simplicity and
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similarity in letter forms can also effect
legibility at small sizes.
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Other examples include Univers.
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Next, we have Humanist Sans, not to be
confused with Humanist Serifs.
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And these get back to some calligraphic
roots with greater variations in
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line widths.
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These are often the most legible of the
sans serif's bunch.
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Hence, their popular use as website body
copy.
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Examples include Tahoma, Gill Sans and
Frutiger.
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Lastly, in our sans serifs, we have our
Geometrics, which are quite popular today.
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As the name implies,
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their letter forms are based on geometric
shapes like circles and squares.
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Examples include Futura, Bank Gothic and
Gotham.
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Now we'll move into our final genre of
scripts,
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which are Typefaces based on handwriting.
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We'll subset this genre into Formal
Scripts and Casual Scripts.
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Formal Scripts are based on letter forms
from writing masters in the 17th and
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18th century.
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They have some contrast between thick and
thin as they are inspired by
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the way a quill or nimbo pen would handle
the letter forms.
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They tend to be more elegant and work well
for events like weddings today.
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Casual Scripts are a bit more free and
well, casual.
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They tend to be more light hearted or
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easy going that their seriously eloquent
counterparts.
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The contrast can range from low to high,
depending on the typeface.
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They are often inspired by the way a brush
or a marker would handle the letter forms.
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All right.
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That was a lot to cover.
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I hope it helps you get to know type a
little better, so
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we can make smarter choices down the road.
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Also, think about if there's a certain
class that you naturally
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gravitate towards.
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In the next video, we'll look at designing
for print versus the web.
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