There are over 100,000 fonts available for use today. A font is a term used in typography to describe a set of characters, in a single size and style, of a specific typeface. The typeface is the actual design of the letterforms. The font is the production mechanism of this typeface. Today, the terms font and typeface are used interchangeably.
Historically, fonts were the actual cast metal printing types. In digital format, the font is the software used to install and output the typeface. Moreover, we can have a single typeface, such as Arial, and have dozens of font formats of it, such as Arial Black or Arial Narrow. Fonts have different characteristics such as roman, bold, thin, italic or oblique. Fonts vary in weight (stroke width), style, and character width. There are also unique and custom font types used for single projects or on social media, such as this cursed text copy for example.
History of Fonts
The history of fonts goes back several centuries. Fonts evolved from the Gothic Style to Modern style thanks to the invention of printing.
Types of Fonts
Types of fonts include Blackletter, Old Style, and Modern. These fonts are characterized as serif, sans serif, script, monospace and slab serif.
Font Characteristics
The anatomy of letterforms of different fonts is unique in proportion and metrics. Specific geometry is used to create these unique styles.