So, is Helvetica a font or a typeface? According to classic definitions, it’s a typeface. Differences Between Fonts and Typefaces.These italics had upright roman capitals, as seen below in an italic type by Ludovico Arrighi, c. Rather than a different style, italics were initially distinct typefaces used to set entire books in. Interestingly enough, historically, the distinction between typefaces and fonts was blurry in the first years of letterpress printing.

Typefaces for languages that use different scripts than Latin (Greek, Cyrillic, Hebrew, Arabic, Devanagari etc.) are referred to as typefaces rather than fonts.

For the same reason sometimes optical sizes are introduced as separate typefaces as well. This is because different widths are often later releases to the original cut. The strange thing about widths is that they are often presented as distinct typefaces rather than fonts that are part of one typeface. Museo/Museo Sans/Museo Slab/Museo Cyrillic/Museo Sans Cyrillic/Museo Sans Rounded/Museo Sans Condensed/Museo Sans Display There are also type families however, which are related typefaces, usually covering sans and serif, and sometimes slab serif or even a blackletter design. Grades: Grade 1, Grade 2, Grade 3, Grade 4 (subtly different weight to accommodate for different printing conditions).Įffects: Inline, Outline, Shadow, Fill, Bevel.Ī typeface is sometimes referred to as a font family, and in CSS this terminology is used rather than typeface. Optical sizes: Caption, Text, Subhead, Display, Deck, Poster. Styles: Roman, Italic, Cursive, Oblique (a slanted roman), Small Caps (usually included as an OpenType feature rather than a digital font), Petite Caps (rare), Upright Italic (rare), Swash (usually an OpenType feature rather than a font). Widths: Compressed, Condensed, Semi Condensed, Narrow, Normal, Extended, Extra Extended, Expanded. Weights: Hairline, Thin, Ultra Light, Extra Light, Light, Book, Regular/Roman, Medium, Semibold, Bold, Extra Bold, Ultra Bold, Black, Ultra Black. Here are the naming conventions of fonts: Instead, the naming convention is the same for physical and digital typefaces fonts refer to weights, widths and styles, and typefaces are the collective names of sets of related fonts. As such there is a conflation of terms, where people think fonts are really digital typefaces, whereas typefaces are physical. Even type foundries tend to refer to themselves as font foundries rather than type foundries. The confusion arose due to the prominence of digital fonts and naming conventions in operating systems, which refer to fonts rather than typefaces. In most instances when people refer to fonts, they really mean typefaces. Most people use the terms 'font' and 'typeface' interchangeably, and they are incorrect to do so. Not all typefaces consist of multiple fonts however. What's the difference between a font and a typeface?Ī typeface is the collective name of a family of related fonts (such as Times New Roman), while fonts refer to the weights, widths, and styles that constitute a typeface (such as Times New Roman Regular, Italic, Bold, etc.).

Difference between font and typeface