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Type Classification

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Blackletter

Humanist

Garalde

Transitional

Modern

New Transitional

Slab Serif

Grotesque

Neo-Grotesque

Geometric

Humanist

Glyphic

Script

Decorative

Contemporary

Contents

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This is just a little look into the different type classifications which exist.

Each classification will explain it’s characteristics, where it can be used and will also have a little bit of history for it as well. There will also be a few examples of typefaces which can be used now that are in that particular style.

Introduction

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Blackletter

The style of the font is very ornate and complex. They use sharp lines and many of the letters are tall and narrow

This works really well for special uses such as; titles, drop caps and certificates. However this would not work as a body-copy font as it is too difficult to read.

I find Blackletter style really difficult to read, however I feel that it works really well as a title font as it is very bold. Also works much better when using small letters, as capitals have a bit too much decoration and make it hard to understand anything.

Fetter Fraktur Lucida Goudy Text Wittenberger Fraktur

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Blackletter may also be referred to as Old English, Text or Gothic and is from the 1400’s.This is a very old font and was used by scribes in the middle ages and throughout the German World War II

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1400’s

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Humanist

Humanist font style has angled crossbars, which can be seen in the ‘e’. There is also a high stress on the font due to how the scribe held the pen that was used.

This font would work much better as a body-copy font as it is much easier to read than Blackletter is.

Centaur Horley Old Style Jenson Cloister

I actually quite like the style of this font as the serifs aren’t too big which gives it quite a nice clean finish to the font. I also like the fact the don’t is quite tall and this as it shows of the size of the strokes.

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Humanist is another font that is from the 1400’s and started to replace Blackletter in Italy.The style of the letters was inspired by previous Roman lettering.

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1400’s

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Garalde

Garalde has fairly high contrast strokes in as well as a much lower stress than the previous fonts before hand. The letters are also a lot more upright and have straighter crossbars, which can be seen on the letter ‘e’.

This would easily work as both body-copy or headline type due to it’s simplistic styles, which makes it easy to read.

Garamond Times New Roman Caslon Palatino

I don’t like this font as much as the previous, as the stroke is a bit thicker and I find it to be quite plain. I do however like the ‘e’ as the crossbar is high up on the letter and I like the style that this gives it.

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Garalde is a font that was in use between the 1500’s and 1700’s. It is also known as Old Style as well.The style of the font came through the fact that typographers were now carving typefaces so that they could be used in printing.

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1500’s - 1700’s

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TransitionalBaskerville Times New Roman Fournier Perpetua

The stress on this font is vertical which is clearly shown on the ‘o’ of this font. There is also a very high stroke contrast, again shown on the ‘o’ as-well as the ‘s’ too. These letters are also very upright as the ‘l’ shows as it isn’t even slightly italic.

Due to the elegance and precision of the font this works best for body-copy text.

This font is a very neat font and I really like the style of it. I really like the letter ‘o’ in this font as it is almost perfectly round and the stress is vertical. I believe this is part of what makes the font look so neat.

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TransitionalThe transitional era bridged the gap between the old style and modern font styles, being popular during the 1700’s. Therefore it was highly linked with technology. John Baskerville was an English typographer and printer, he established the transitional style around the mid 18th century.

1700’s

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Modern

This new style uses extreme stroke contrast, where broad strokes reduce down to thin hairlines. The style of the serif have also majority changed compared to previous styles. These serifs are abrupt as they have no transitional curves on them.

This style can be used through both headings and body copy, however due to the extreme stroke contrast it can be difficult to read in body-copy at a smaller font.

Bodoni Torino Bauer Bodoni Walbaum

In this font I really like the styles of the serifs even though they are very abrupt. It completely changes the look of the font, especially with the addition of the extreme contrast as well. I feel that it would look lovely being used as a large title.

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Modern is also known as Didone and was around during the 1800’s. Giambattista Bodoni was an Italian typographer and he epitomizes the Modern type style. When this font first came around it was called ‘Classical’ until it was realised by the printers that this font type was not an updated version of the classic styles before hand, and that it was an altogether new style and became ‘Modern’

1800’s

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New Transitional

New Transitional classification is serif typefaces which have a very complex mix of features. They also have a soft edging to them which makes them appear very smooth, unlike many previous serif fonts.

This classification can be used on both headings and body-copy text and would work quite well for both. It is easy to understand even though the features are complex they work well together to create a very legible type classification.

Bookman Century Schoolbook Cheltenham

Although I don’t really like serifs much myself, I feel that the softness of this font works really well and I actually quite like these fonts.

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New Transitional, although it appears very similar to Transitional it does have a more improved appearance with a higher overall satisfaction when it is being looked at. This is due to the soft edges as it makes it easy to look at.

1900’s

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Slab Serif

Slab Serif was very different to the previous fonts that had been explored as it has a completely uniform stroke size with thick block lines. The serifs had also changed and were now short block/square serifs rather than the majority of the others which had a transitional curve.

This style is best used for advertising, especially on a large scale, using billboards and posters.

Rockwell Clarendon Calvert Memphis

Although this font is very different to all the other fonts, I do like the style of it as it is quite a bold style and I feel that although it was mainly used as for large scale advertising that it would also work as body-copy to a certain extent.

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The Slab Serif is from the 1900’s and is also known as Egyptian. Slab Serif itself was a result of newspaper headlines and product advertising becoming more popular throughout this time. Because of the higher use of advertising, through billboards and posters, it needed to withstand the industrial process. The strong, square shape was extremely effective for attracting the readers attention.

1900’s

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Grotesque

These were the first fonts to get rid of the serifs altogether. They had little if no contrast. A main characteristic of many of these fonts is the “bowl & loop” lower-case ‘g’, which is common to Roman lettering. Another main characteristic was in the ‘R’ which often had a slightly curled leg.

These worked very well on body-copy text due to the simplicity of the style.

Franklin Gothic News Gothic Trade Gothic

I usually like sans-serif fonts but I’m not too sure about these ones because they are quite plain, and I prefer the fonts which are more geometrical.

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The first sans-serif fonts came around in the 1900’s and were very different to all fonts before hand. The name ‘Grotesque’ literally means ugly due to rejection of the classic serif typefaces.

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1900’s

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Neo-Grotesque

These strokes were a little different to the grotesque ones as they had no stroke contract at all and they also had perfectly straight terminals. These characteristics gave it a geometric style appearance.

This classification can be used in both body-copy and headings, however when it was first designed people found it difficult to read due to the difference to the old serif fonts that they were used to.

Univers Helvetica Akzidenz Grotesk Folio

I think that this style is extremely neat due to the use of the straight terminals. I also think that the strokes being even all the way round also makes it a very neat simplistic style of font which would work well for body-copy. It wouldn’t be the most interesting to use for a title or headline though.

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This style was created in the late 1900’s compared to the early 1900’s for the grotesque sans-serif. Neo-grotesque is a sub classification of grotesque and is not actually a classification in itself. It abandons all traditional characteristics of other fonts making it a very simple and minimalistic font style.

1900’s

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Geometric

The lineale geometric is a simple classification as it bases fonts on geometric shapes. The ‘o’ for example is a perfect circle shape.

Although the fonts are very modern they can be slightly awkward to read in lower-case sometimes as there is no difference in the stroke weight to bring out important parts of the characters and word. They are actually less readable than Grotesque fonts.

Futura Kabel Eurostile Avant Garde

Although it is said that they are awkward to read I actually think that they are really easy to read and like the font ‘Century Gothic’ which is very much based on geometric shapes and has no variety in the thickness of the weight.

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This particular sans-serif was also created in the 1900’s. Geometric fonts are a result of taking the design trend at the time to the edge of what they could do making them extremely modern and very simplistic.

1900’s

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Humanist

These fonts had a mid contrast in the stroke weight making them very different to many other sans-serif fonts. They are also highly based on Roman inscription letter proportions. Although this is a sans-serif font it also closely matched the design characteristics and proportions or some serif types.

These fonts can easily be used as both body-copy and heading text, because of the letter proportions it makes them easy to read even when at quite a small size.

Gill Sans Optima Goudy Sans Rotis Sans Serif

My favourite of these fonts would have to be ‘Goudy Sans’ as I feel that it is a really simplistic font with good proportions used throughout so that it doesn’t look too thin.

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Humanist was again in the 1900’s, but instead of trying to change the font as the Geometric typeface has, they instead tried to keep some elements of ‘human’ handwriting by using stroke contrast. This means that they often have a strong calligraphic influence. Typographic experts claim that these are the easiest to read of all the sans-serif sub-divisions.

1900’s

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Glyphic

1900’s

Glyphic is a sans-serif font and is sometimes divided into 2 different groups; Glyphic, Latin. This style imitates inscriptions which would be done into stone, rather than text which would have been pen-drawn.This font is fairly simple and has a minimal stroke contrast. . The axis of curved strokes also tend to be vertical. There are also 2 very distinguishing features to this font, 1 of which is the triangular shaped serif, even though it is a sans-serif it still has a slight serif at the end of some of them, and the other characteristic is how the strokes on the characters flare where they terminate.

This style can mainly be used as any font, both body-copy or headings. However some of the fonts like ‘Trajan’ aren’t as good for body-copy text.

Optima TrAjan Goudy Sans Rotis Sans Serif

I have mixed views about this classification. All the fonts have the same characteristics they do also look quite different. For example ‘Optima’ I quite like due to its curved stroke, however I don’t like the feel of the ‘Trajan’ font.

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Script

Script is like nothing that has been done before and was completely designed to resemble handwriting. This meant that some letters were connected together. It also frequently used flourishes on the end of letters. The font itself was highly rounded and usually slants to the right. The formal script style can usually be recognized by it having a small x-height.

This style of font is generally used on announcements and invitations as due to it’s style it is not suitable for body-copy. It is also never used in all capitals as this is far too difficult to read.

Brush Script Snell Roundhand Savoye LET SignPainter

I find this is a really nice style and like it as a heading/title font, however I feel that it is difficult to read a lot of the time, even when at a large scale. My favourite from the sample above would be SignPainter as I think it is the most legible.

1600’s

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Decorative

It is difficult to describe the style for this font as there isn’t really one particular font and it is more varied. Some of these fonts can be very hard to read and can include images, icons or shapes within each individual character.

This font is used for headings and signage. It could never ever be used as body-copy due to its complex designs and shapes it would almost be illegible.

Cooper Black Broadway Bocklin Copperplate

I myself do not really like this font classification, sometimes when they are done subtly they can look alright, but some go too over the top and just become a font which can not be used for much.

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This font is sometimes referred to as ‘novelty’ or ‘occasional’ due to the unusual and unique font styles which are in this classification. It is a very diverse classification, yet they are very easily recognizable.

As they are all so different it is highly likely that the name of the typeface would reflect the style of the particular font.

2000’s

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Contemporary

Contemporary typefaces are usually quite modern and interesting. It is difficult to describe the characteristics as there are no particular ones which exist. Each font is very different in the style in which it uses.

Although some of these fonts could be used for body-copy, I would say they would be best used for headings due to the interesting shapes of the characters.

Blur Beowulf Trixie Exocet

I don’t know if I would class this a classification myself as these could fit into the Decorative classification, however I really like the ‘Blur’ font as it is very modern and has used interesting shapes to create the letters.

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2000ísContemporary is hard to classify as a specific type, and it had therefore been argues that it shouldn’t even be called one.

The font ‘Blur’ has been used in the TATE museum logo and works really well for this use.

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