Thinking With Type Info

Here is a link to Ellen Lupton’s website on type: http://www.thinkingwithtype.com/contents/text/#Alignment

Serif:
In typography, serifs are the small lines tailing from the edges of letters and symbols.
Serif typeface (or serifed typeface): A typeface with serifs is called a serif.

Sans serif or sans-serif: A typeface without serifs.  From the French sans, meaning “without”. Some typography sources refer to sans-serif typefaces as “Grotesque” (in German ”grotesk”) or “Gothic”, and serif typefaces as “Roman”.

Outgrowth of display types of the 19th century designed to be bold and stripped of non essential details. The terminals end sharply without adornment. Generally more legible at small sizes. 

Serif fonts can be broadly classified into one of four subgroups:

old style, transitional, modern and slab serif.

Old Style

The Adobe Garamond typeface, an example of an old-style serif

 

• Old style or humanist typefaces date back to 1465 and are characterized by a diagonal stress (the thinnest parts of letters are at an angle rather than at the top and bottom), subtle differences between thick and thin lines (low line contrast), and excellent readability. Old style typefaces are reminiscent of the humanist calligraphy from which their forms were derived. An old style font normally has a left-inclining curve axis with weight stress at about 8 and 2 o’clock; serifs are almost always bracketed (they have curves which connect the serif to the stroke); head serifs are often angled.^[16]

Transitional

 The Times New Roman typeface, an example of a transitional serif

• In between modern and old style.
•  Differences between thick and thin lines are more pronounced than they are in old style, but they are still less dramatic than they are in modern serif fonts.
  • • • • • • • • • First appeared in the mid-18th century. They are among the most common, including such widespread typefaces as Times New Roman (1932) and Baskerville (1757). Other transitional serifs include Bookman, Century, Georgia and Plantin.

   

Modern

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The Bodoni typeface, an example of a modern serif

• extreme contrast between thick and thin lines.
• Modern typefaces have a vertical stress, long and fine serifs, with minimal brackets.Serifs tend to be very thin and vertical lines are very heavy. Most modern fonts are less readable than transitional or old style serif typefaces. Common examples include Bodoni, Didot, Computer Modern, andWalbaum.

Slab Serif

The Rockwell typeface, an example of a slabserif

• Slab serif or Egyptian typefaces usually have little if any contrast between thick and thin lines.
• Serifs tend to be as thick as the vertical lines themselves and usually have no bracket.Slab serif fonts have a bold, rectangular appearance and sometimes have fixed widths, meaning that all characters occupy the same amount of horizontal space (as in a typewriter). They are sometimes described as sans-serif fonts with serifs because the underlying character shapes are often similar to sans-serif typefaces, with less variation between thin and thick shapes on the character. (A subcategory of slab serif is the Clarendon typefaces, which do have small but significant brackets, and structures more similar to serifed typefaces.)Slab serif typefaces date to around 1800.
• Examples of slab serif typefaces include Clarendon, Rockwell and Courier.

 

Graphic Type: 

• experimental, decorative, Visually expressive but not easily readable in a long block of text. Includes script faces, fancy and complex faces inspired by handwriting and idiosynchratic faces that are illustrative and conceptual

Type Sizes and Spacing

A sentence set in oldstyle serif and a similr weight sans serif at the same point size will appear to be two different sizes.