Type Classification

Organizing your Font Book increases your efficiency and makes you
aware of all fonts available. On the left are suggested classifications
of your fonts. The information on the right takes the basic categories
we learn in Typography class, and organizes most of the fonts you
receive in OS X. If one of your fonts isn’t listed, use the description
to classify the font. We suggest that you start with the categories
learned in Introduction to Typography, and expand your categories
as you learn more about type.
Type Classification
and Font Book
BLACKLETTER
The earliest printing type, its forms
were based upon the hand-copying
styles then used for books in northern Europe.
Cloister Black
Goudy Text
Derived From:
http://abc.planet-typography.com
ABC typography is a virtual museum
of typography. Here are a few very
simple categories:
Classic – classical typefaces
(1480-1890)
20th Century:
20th Century Typefaces
Modern – contemporary typefaces
Misc. – unclassified typefaces
HUMANIST
Cochin
Gill Sans
Lucida Grande
Monaco
Optima
DISPLAY/NOVELTY
#HeadLineA
American Typewriter
Chalkboard
Chicago
Courier
Courier New
Curlz MT
Gadget
Herculanum
Impact
Marker Felt
Papyrus
Silom
Skia
VT100
SYMBOL
Monotype Sorts
Monotype Sorts
Symbol
Symbol
Webdings
Webdings
Wingdings
Wingdings
Zapf Dingbats
Zapf Dingbats
Volume 4. Issue 1. Oct. 2006
www.vcd.kent.edu/resources/roughs.html
TONY SAMANGY
ERIC MAY
VALORA
RENICKER
JOAN INDERHEES
Georgia
Diotima w/ Italic
Baskerville
Adobe Garamond Pro
Verdana
Skia
Gill Sans
Myriad
Rosewood
Blackletter
Papyrus
Lucida Blackletter
Being a web designer this
question is extremely easy
for me to answer:
Serif font:
Diotima w/ Italic, Gundrun
Von Zapf
Serif: Georgia
Wackiest (but genius):
Narly, Suzanna Licko
From that list of OSX
fonts, probably the
Baskerville family. It has
more style and panache
than Times, especially
since students tend to set
their type too large when
they are first learning.
Adobe Garamond Pro. It
has alternate non-lining
figures and true Small
Caps.
Best Re-design:
Mrs. Eves,
Suzanna Licko
Best modern traditional:
any fonts by
Carol Twombly
Grand Maestro:
Hermann Zapf
I like Frutiger 47LightCn
for sans serif.
Sans Serif: Verdana
There are no other options.
These are the best looking,
most readable and most
widely accepted fonts for
viewing on all platforms
and browsers (unless
you consider Arial
and Times real fonts.)
What font should never be
used, also an easy one:
Freakin’ Rosewood. If
you didn’t jump on that
bandwagon by now,
it’s too freakin’ late. Find a
font that every other single
designer in the world has
not already used, that
ship has sailed! Happy
typesetting.
Sans Serif:
Skia w/ old style figures,
Matthew Carter
Students should never
use anything called “Olde
English“ or any Blackletter font; all Caps!
CHRISTOPHER RANSOM
Below are Chris Ransom’s type choices referenced from
www.designingwithtype.com
Akzidenz Grotesk: Berthold Foundry
(But the Matrix family by
Suzanna Licko of Emigre
fonts is great! It has
contemporary angular
serifs, so it serves well for
both traditional layouts
as well as non-traditional
designs. It also works
well with sans serif fonts.
Buy it when you get a job
and have some money!)
Bauer Bodoni: Louis Hoell
Gill Sans, because I love
Eric Gill fonts and it is
a good family set for
students to use. But I’m
getting tired of seeing it in
so many student projects!
(I guess they need to buy
some new fonts!) I have
it in both the Sans Serif
folder in Font Book and
the Humanist folder.
Myriad.
Papyrus ranks near the
top of that list... not
because it’s bad, but because it is so popular with
the Windows people and
it is so overused! There
are many really ugly ones,
but I can’t bear to look at
some of them!!
Lucida Blackletter. It (like
most script fonts) lacks
alternate swashes, and
the repetition of the same
embellishment in a line
of type distracts from the
reading of the text.
Franklin Gothic: Morris Benton
Garamond No. 3: Jean Jannon
but also:
–Papyrus. it’s overused.
–Curlz. ditto.
–Braggadocio.
–Comic Sans. hire a letterer
to do it right.
–Sim Sun. Awful kerning.
bad type is not as much
a problem as bad typography.
Univers: Adrian Frutiger
The word typography refers to the art or skill of designing communication by means of the printed word. Because technology is
changing rapidly with development of computer systems, everyone
working on a Mac or a PC has to practice the art of typography.
Typography may be an art, but it is also a science. Its goal is to
serve the communication. As a typographer, you are the servant
of the author of the text. You may help the author to be better
understood and that’s an important part of the job. But you don’t
make works of art of your own.