Serif Fonts and Their Peculiarities
- By Vitaly Friedman
- Posted in Fonts
- 48 comments
Typography obviously belongs to the cohort of the fine arts, where even the smallest details and elements are meaningful and can influence the overall perception of the final creation, whether it is a picture or a text, printed with a particular typeface. In terms of fonts design, serifs are those tiny elements, which add a particular character to a typeface, contributing to the unique feel and look every font is characterized with.
By definition, serifs are the small lines or strokes at the ends of the main strokes of the letters in a particular font. Sometimes, serifs are also descriptively explained as “hooks” or “little feet” at the ends of the vertical and horizontal strokes of a letter. Consequently, fonts with serifs are usually mentioned as Serif fonts, for example, Times Roman, Garamond, Souvenir, etc. On the other hand, fonts, where letters are not supplied with such embellishing elements, are called Sans Serif fonts (“sans” means “without” in French).
It is interesting to note that along with purely decorative function serifs are believed to play a role in the text perception mechanism by the human eyes, making the printed text easier to read. This is why Serif fonts have always been among the primary choices for printing books, newspapers, and magazines. However, in electronic media, due to the specificity of perceiving a text on the computer screen, it is preferred to use Sans Serif rather than Serif fonts, because reading letters without serifs is considered to be easier on the screen.
Stemming out of the ancient Roman alphabet with the letters carved into stone, Serif fonts have passed a long way of development and evolution. As the result, now we have several types of Serif fonts, each with its own peculiarities and specific features.
Old Style Serif Fonts
Dating back to the middle of the 15th century, old style serif fonts are considered to be based on the humanist calligraphy. The key features of the old style serif fonts are low line contrast (when there is only a slight difference between thick and thin lines forming a letter) and diagonal stress (the thinnest parts of the letters are those at the angles). It is believed that the combination of diagonal stress and bracketed serifs in old style serif fonts creates a special positive word picture, which is especially favorable for the ease of reading and perception.
Free old style serif fonts
Commercial old style serif fonts
Transitional Serif Fonts
Everyone knows Times New Roman font, which is commonly used as the default font in computer text editors. This font, created in 1932, is the most vivid representative of the transitional serif fonts, which first appeared in the middle of the 18th century and now stands between old style and modern serifs in the typical font classification. Unlike old style serifs, transitional serif fonts feature higher line contrast with more distinctive difference between thick and thin lines. Transitional serif fonts are sometimes called “baroque fonts”.
Free transitional serif fonts
Commercial transitional serif fonts
Modern Serif Fonts
Modern serif fonts first appeared at the end of the 18th century. Also known as Didone serif typefaces, the family of modern serifs fonts has vivid differences from the old style serif fonts. These are the extreme high line contrast, vertical stress instead of diagonal, and long and fine serifs. Vertical lines of the modern serif fonts are usually very heavy, which, in combination with thin and light serifs, makes a text, printed in modern serif font, less readable.
Free modern serif fonts
Commercial modern serif fonts
Slab Serif Fonts
The first slab serif font was presented in the early 19th century by Vincent Figgins under the name Antique. However, in view of public craze in Europe for everything Egyptian at those times, the slab serif fonts were commonly called Egyptian. Virtually no difference between thick and thin lines of the letters is the key feature of slab serifs. With the bold and rectangular shapes, slab serif fonts often have fixed width, which means that every letter occupies the same horizontal space.
Free slab serif fonts
Commercial slab serif fonts
Clarendon Serif Fonts
Clarendon serif font is sometimes classified as the subtype of slab serif fonts. However, unlike traditional slab serifs, Clarendon font has some brackets at the junction of a stem and serifs. Also, Clarendon fonts usually feature heavy and square-cut serifs. This font group was widely used in the Old West in “wanted” posters and later on traffic signs in the USA. Now Clarendon font can be found on the logotypes of many companies with Sony among them.
Free Clarendon serif fonts
Commercial Clarendon serif fonts
Freeform Serif Fonts
Along with the serif fonts, designed in accordance with particular typography rules or tradition, such as old style serif fonts or modern serifs, there are also many freeform serif fonts, developed these days. Designers, inspired by a rich legacy of serif fonts and modern trends in typography, use all their imagination to present serif fonts in a fresh and sometimes completely unexpected way.
Free freeform serif fonts
Commercial freeform serif fonts
About the Author
Jordan Walker, 09 April 2010
I am a programmer with a fond love of typography. Thanks for the interesting article.
Rodrigo Seoane, 09 April 2010
Very good explanation !!
I believe it was quite hard to classify these fonts, but you did a good job!
[]s,
Rodrigo
Lena Tailor, 09 April 2010
well written article.
Your examples well support your statements!
Jennifer Lopez, 13 April 2010
You are so fake.. Like all the other comments on this site are just adds.
$hekh@r, 18 April 2010
i too agree for Jennifer
pica-ae, 09 April 2010
awesome article, gotta love everything about fonts
WebGuide4U, 09 April 2010
Love this article. good typorgarohy
J, 11 April 2010
What is typorgarohy?
esranull, 09 April 2010
very very good post thanks lot
Jeroen, 09 April 2010
This post really helps me a lot. I’ve had some problems lately finding the right fonts… They are very important when making a good design.
Gonzo the Great, 09 April 2010
Nice article, good research, great examples. Well done and thanks for sharing, Cheers & Ciao …
Gerard Syms, 09 April 2010
Thanks for this educational post and also for some wonderful examples of each category of serif font.
Tasha, 09 April 2010
I am so glad that there are those who still appreciate serif fonts. My last employer and I frequently had friendly battles over the use of what he loved to call “font with feet”. I love them when they’re appropriate; he tended to stick with Verdana.
John, 09 April 2010
That was an excellent read. Well organized and interesting font article.
Nathan, 09 April 2010
Unless you are applying for a real job, then your employer would probably care less about what bloody typeface your resume was in but rather what content it contained.
J, 11 April 2010
spam
Anonymous, 10 April 2010
A little bit disappointing to see no mention made of two particular high quality free (gratis and libre) serif typefaces:
* The very modern and legible DejaVu Serif (the successor to Bitstream’s Vera Serif)
* The classical and elegant Gentium
It would also be nice if the article could distinguish between “freeware” and free software fonts.
Miguel, 10 April 2010
Nice, looking forward for the Sans-serif article.
Thanks
Barbara, 10 April 2010
Thanks- loved this.
Kevin Coté, 10 April 2010
I am pretty sure Baskerville is a transitional typeface.
Mark, 12 April 2010
Kevin,
You’re wrong. Baskerville is Modern serif. Gotta check all characters. If you check M or N, you’ll see yourself.
Type Professor, 12 April 2010
Baskerville is the model for transitional classification. Kevin is correct.
Type Professor, 12 April 2010
Sorry, but Kevin is correct.
Susan, 02 February 2011
In addition, three of those free Moderns are not at all Moderns. One is Old Style, and two are Transitional. There are lots of errors in this article.
Type Professor, 10 April 2010
Not to be pompous…I can appreciate individuals exposing type classification to others, but there are many grave errors here. Baskerville is a transitional. MODERN refers to a style with hairline serifs with high contrast between the strokes.
Breaking Clarendon and slab serif/Egyptian into two categories is debatable. But not completely off base.
Classification is HIGHLY debatable and often breaks down to categories within categories, e.g. Venetian Old Style, Geralde, Aldine, Baroque. Really, classification boils down to a combination of proportions, periods, and serifs.
Here is a more accurate summary from Elen Lupton’s Thinking With Type.
http://www.papress.com/other/thinkingwithtype/letter/classification.htm
And a more detailed opinion from Jonathan Hoefler.
http://typophile.com/courses/type101
D, 14 April 2010
Thank you! It was driving me nuts that Baskerville was listed as a Modern typeface. That type classification page you linked to is much clearer than a lot of the examples here.
Chuck Sargent, 31 October 2012
I’ve been a typographer for many years now and right now i’m having trouble remembering if there is a different category for Wedge Serifs of if they’re just considered Serifs.
Schrumpfschlauch, 10 April 2010
Wow, so many Serif Fonts. I will install some of the free for me. Thx for sharing and the work.
Maximilian Georg Liebscher, 11 April 2010
Thank you for this article! :)
Martin Hyde, 11 April 2010
Well written article, thanks. I do like a nice serif font
Bart V, 11 April 2010
Really useful list of fonts here, thanks!
Natasha, 11 April 2010
very excellent read …really enjoyed it
Flavio Mester, 11 April 2010
Thanks for the well written and very useful article.
Jack, 11 April 2010
thanks for putting this together. good read.
monica of hola!design, 12 April 2010
Great collection! I’m a serif girl, and I really love Museo. It’s just perfect.
Neil Dennis, 12 April 2010
Great article with some beautiful examples of serif typography. We use Sentinel for our corporate font by http://typography.com/fonts/font_overview.php?productLineID=100034 which is a great option for our corporate/relaxed vibe.
Bene, 12 April 2010
Museo is indeed perfect!
go serif!
Danko LogoFoo, 12 April 2010
I don’t know if there’s so many type of serif fonts out there. All I thought was that Times New Roman, Garamond, Goudy, etc are serifs, without any further classification. Thanks Noupe
amgad elsaiegh, 14 April 2010
Thanks for the well written and very useful article.
Johno, 14 April 2010
I agree with the Type Professor above, in that it’s great you are exposing readers to type classification. S/he is also correct in pointing out that Baskerville is most certainly Transitional; in fact, Baskerville is the archetypal Transitional typeface. There are quite a few others that are wrongly classified, but … I’ll keep my mouth shut, and just congratulate you for spreading the word.
See also this article for an explanation of the Transitional classification: http://ilovetypography.com/2008/01/17/type-terms-transitional-type/
Paragon Visual, 14 April 2010
This article is going to help a lot with my clients. Most of them have no idea about any of the basics of design. Letting them see this ad will make explanation much easier.
Orlando website design, 07 May 2010
i feel so geek when i get excited just from reading the title xD
Lenni, 09 June 2010
Nice post thanks guys for sharing it.
2sweetpea, 26 June 2010
great post. I’ve gotta do something bout my legs…
Bong Ebbighausen, 05 November 2010
Excellent posting, well crafted I have to admit.
Brett Widmann, 20 December 2010
This is really great! Thanks for sharing.
Derry, 18 November 2011
I’m looking for a Bodoni style font, but not the slab version… anyone know where I can find this? It’s killing me….
Chuck Sargent, 31 October 2012
Bodoni Antiqua?