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Typeface vs. Font: Terminology Smackdown

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Re: Typeface vs. Font: Terminology Smackdown

#21

Post by nchlswu »

crazygringo wrote: post #8
tmoertel wrote: post #6

The article seems to get it wrong. It claims, for example, that Garamond 3, Adobe Garamond, and ITC Garamond are "all the same typeface, but each is a different font." They are actually different typefaces, each based on Garamond's (or Jannon's) earlier designs. The key is that they are different designs . That's why they have different names and also why nobody who specified Garamond 3 for a project would be happy t…

Exactly. Amazing how even the article gets it wrong. Sheesh. Never in my life have I heard "Garamond" called a single typeface. They are all different Garamond typefaces. While the bold, italic, display, caption, etc. versions of each are the different fonts.

wouldn't bold, italic, etc., be variants of a typeface, with a corresponding font?

Re: Typeface vs. Font: Terminology Smackdown

#22

Post by tmoertel »

ingebretsen wrote: post #20
tmoertel wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

UPDATE: I descended into the basement to retrieve my copy of Cleeton, Pitkin, and Cornwell's General Printing , 3rd edition, 1963. (Back then Glen U. Cleeton was the Dean of the School of Printing Management at the Carnegie Institute of Technology, better known today as Carnegie Mellon University's College of Engineering.) Anyway, one sentence from the book makes it clear: "A font is an assortment of one size and fac…

The distinction was easier before digital type. Today we have no physical object to represent a font. The font file itself might be the closest analog to pre-digital fonts but that seems to be an even more extreme view than I took in the post.

The files we have today on the computer contain font programs. These programs can be interpreted in software to yield the needed fonts (= face-size combinations) on demand.

Edited to add: But none of this changes the fact that Adobe Garamond and Garamond 3 and ITC Garamond are not the same typeface. If you wrote the original article, you should probably update it to fix this mistake before readers start getting the wrong idea.

Re: Typeface vs. Font: Terminology Smackdown

#23

Post by ingebretsen »

BHSPitMonkey wrote: post #4

How are those examples the same typeface, as the author claims? The details in the shapes of the glyphs are strikingly different. Wouldn't it be more correct to say they are distinct typefaces of a particular family (Garamond)?

That's a totally fair point. They're really visually distinct, especially to someone with any eye for type. Garamond is confusing because it's so old and so influential. Maybe it would have been better to choose something like Futura which, I think, most people would agree is a single typeface but can be purchased digitally from multiple foundries as a distinct font.

Re: Typeface vs. Font: Terminology Smackdown

#24

Post by ingebretsen »

ademarre wrote: post #13

While I appreciate the desire for fastidiousness, I don't entirely agree with Mr. Ingebretsen. I prefer Jon Tan's perspective: http://v1.jontangerine.com/log/2008/08/typeface--font A typeface is a family of fonts (very often by the same designer). Within a typeface there will be fonts of varying weights or other variations. E.g., light, bold, semi-bold, condensed, italic, etc. Each such variation is a different font.…

That's a fantastic quote and I'll update the post with that. The only corner case that I don't think it covers is type that has been digitally converted from an analog form to its digital equivalent. Lots of favorite typefaces fall into this category: Futura, Helvetica, Rockwell, etc.
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