![]() ![]() Frankly, if you’ve made it this far, then you probably have a more nuanced understanding of the terms than you really need!įinally, numerous commenters pointed out that Garamond is rarely used by any knowledgable typographer to refer to a specific typeface. The way I described their usage in this post seems to match the way that I see a lot of typographers using the terms today. The fact is that these terms are evolving and adapting to a digital world. Jon Tan’s description, however, is too clear and concise to ignore. For some reason, I still prefer to think of these terms through some kind of a dualistic lens. I think that’s accurate, but it fails to make a distinction between the conceptual and the physical. His point is that Helvetica and Helvetica Bold are different fonts, albeit one typeface. This is a slightly different take than mine. The only evolution in terminology that results from the transition from metal-cast to digital fonts is that (point) size is no longer fixed. E.g., light, bold, semi-bold, condensed, italic, etc. Within a typeface there will be fonts of varying weights or other variations. typeface from Jon Tan:Ī typeface is a family of fonts (very often by the same designer). Enough said.Īnother Update:Leave it to the crack team at Hacker News to make sure you know when you got it wrong! Someone pointed me to this fantastically simple explanation of font vs. Update:Incredibly, Erik Spiekerman saw this post and summed it up perfectly with these eight words: you design a typeface, you make a font. Unless, of course, they’re shopping for Garamonds (in which case, you can send them here). When someone asks you about your favorite font you’ll know that they probably really want to hear about your favorite typeface. You also wouldn’t ask someone about their favorite vacation JPEGs (although that might be extending the analogy too far, but you get the point). Even if you might ask someone about a favorite CD, Rolling Stone wouldn’t. You already do this with familiar media types. But also, even if subtle, it’s a real difference-and once you know it, you can’t help but notice it. So why the nitpick? Mostly because I think it’s interesting. In reality, this distinction normally doesn’t matter and people use fontand typefaceinterchangeably all the time. That’s just one (great) recording and there are certainly others. In our music analogy, Garamond is like Beethoven’s Fifth and Adobe Garamond Pro is like this Telarc recording. Those are all the same typeface, but each is a different font. But today you can buy Garamond (the font) from at least a dozen sources. A classic example of this is Garamond, a typeface that came into being nearly 400 years ago (well before truetype, shortly after printing presses). This distinction is why you can have multiple foundries that sell fonts of the same typeface. One is a concept, the other a manifestation. One is the definition, the other is an instance. I think it’s easiest to understand the difference by analogy: a typeface is like a song and a font is like a recording. Wikipedia even says they’re synonymous but I (and others) disagree. In fact, it’s common to use the two interchangeably. In its digital form, fonts are more flexible and the moment when a typeface becomes a font is way more nuanced. Instead you bought a font: Garamond Bold at 13 points. ![]() In traditional print, the distinction is easy: a font was a typeface set at a certain size, weight and style and cast in metal. It’s embarrassingly trivial, but here goes: I think they should have said “typeface” not “font.” Here’s why: THE DIFFERENCEįirst, my take on the difference between those terms. ![]() It’s a good question, but I took issue with something small. Last Friday, someone at Microsoft posed “What is your favorite font?” as the day’s question on twitter. ![]()
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