Types of Fonts

Published on: Mar 28 2011 by Shenron

Technically speaking, a writing font or font is the particular size and style of a set of letters or alphabets that are used in printing, etc Fonts are available in many different sizes and styles. Writing fonts are not a new phenomenon as these are used over years by the calligraphers or professional scribes or penmen in their assigned work. Recently, writing font has become a major part of the computer word processing software. With the development in the printing press, the writing fonts has become not only important part of it but also improved by great deal in styles.

Some of the different font styles are given below:

Script & Handwriting Fonts

Script fonts are the fonts which are devised to present some cursive handwriting or calligraphy. It is not always easy to read them so it is important to take due care while implementing them in your writings. Scripts fonts are widely used in announcements, logos and invitations. Handwriting fonts are the script fonts which are used to make your work appears like a handwritten. It is not necessary that the handwriting fonts are cursive as well. Brush Script and Edwardian Script are the most suitable examples of script fonts, while Freestyle Script and Comic Sans are the apt examples of handwriting fonts.

Serif

A serif is basically a short line top or bottom of some styles or in other words detailing on letters of alphabets, for instance, feet on a capital ‘A’. This font style is widely used in books, newspapers, magazines. Times New Roman, Georgia, Rockwell, Courier New and Garamond are some of the formal serif font styles.

Sans-serif

Sans-serif is another formal font style that is used commonly in the publications. The only different between the serif font and sans-serif font is that the latter doesn’t use detailing or short line on the letters or alphabets. For instance, the capital letter ‘A’ doesn’t have any feet. Arial, Franklin, Calibri, Comic Sans MS, Century Gothic and Gothic are some of the examples of sans-serif font.

Language

There are so many languages which have separate character fonts than those with letters derived from Latin. Language fonts are solely designed for those languages which have their own separate characters such as Arabic, Chinese, Japanese and Hebrew. Language fonts are specifically the fonts for languages other than English, French and Italian. It is important to mention here that there are certain variations found within the language fonts as well.

Calligraphic

Calligraphic fonts are basically the fonts used for decorative writing in formal invitations or announcements. The purpose of designing calligraphic font is to bring a sense of handwritten calligraphy written by professional scribes or calligraphers. The most suitable examples of calligraphic font style include Blackletter and Vivaldi.

Novelty

Novelty fonts or ornamental fonts are used solely with decorative intentions. These fonts are not used to right paragraphs or long scripts rather the use of these fonts is limited to large titles where the intention is to attract the attention of the people. In novelty fonts, pictures are used to create letters. Often a theme is involved in the selection of novelty fonts like bamboo, western, Christmas and so on. Jokerman and Bamboo are the two most apt examples of novelty fonts.

Symbols

There are few writing fonts which instead of using letters or alphabets make use of pictorial representations. There are different sort of symbol fonts which are used such as MS Reference series which include arrows, fractions and many other symbols to represent something.

Monospace Fonts

Monospace fonts are the fonts in which letters and symbols are of same width. For instance, the letter ‘I’ in lowercase has the same width as the letter ‘M’ in uppercase. Such fonts were most commonly used in the typewriters and in earlier computer types. Nowadays, the use of monospace fonts can be seen for computer programming, or certain other technical contents. Courier, Courier New and Monaco are some of the examples of monospace fonts.

Above mentioned are some of the most commonly used types of fonts. There are certain others which are used for certain situations and conditions.

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