This article is about the font characteristic. For the software company, see. For other uses, see. Sans-serif font Serif font Serif font (red serifs) In, a serif ( ) is a small line attached to the end of a stroke in a letter or symbol. A with serifs is called a serif typeface (or serifed typeface). A typeface without serifs is called or sans serif, from the sans, meaning 'without'. Some typography sources refer to sans-serif typefaces as 'Grotesque' (in 'grotesk') or 'Gothic', and serif typefaces as '.

Stag Sans Book Free Download. The first slab serif typefaces. Slab Serif / Egyptian Welcome to the early 1800s and the birth of the Slab Serif. Slab Serif type history. FONT NEWS TYPE HISTORY MAKING FONTS INTERVIEWS. Introduction Design History. Slab Serif faces generally.

Roman brushed capitals: Serifs originated in the with —words carved into stone in Roman. The explanation proposed by Father in his 1968 book The Origin of the Serif is now broadly but not universally accepted: the Roman letter outlines were first painted onto stone, and the stone carvers followed the brush marks, which flared at stroke ends and corners, creating serifs. Another theory is that serifs were devised to neaten the ends of lines as they were chiseled into stone. The origin of the word serif is obscure, but apparently is almost as recent as the type style.

In The British Standard of the Capital Letters contained in the Roman Alphabet, forming a complete code of systematic rules for a mathematical construction and accurate formation of the same (1813) by, it defined surripses, usually pronounced 'surriphs', as 'projections which appear at the tops and bottoms of some letters, the O and Q excepted, at the beginning or end, and sometimes at each, of all'. The standard also proposed that surripsis may be a Greek word derived from συν (together) and ριψις (projection). In 1827, a Greek scholar printed with his own experimental Greek types, remarking that the types of 's Callimachus were 'ornamented (or rather disfigured) by additions of what [he] believe[s] type-founders call syrifs or cerefs'. The printer referred to them as 'ceriphs' in 1825. The oldest citations in the ( OED) are 1830 for serif and 1841 for sans serif.

The OED speculates that serif was a from sanserif. Traces serif to the noun schreef, meaning 'line, stroke of the pen', related to the verb schrappen, 'to delete, strike through'. Schreef now also means 'serif' in Dutch. (The relation between 'schreef' and 'schrappen' is documented by Van Veen and Van der Sijs in Etymologisch Woordenboek (Van Dale, 1997). Yet, 'schreef' literally is past-tense of 'schrijven' (to write). In her Chronologisch Woordenboek (Veen, 2001), Van der Sijs lists words by first known publication in the language area that is The Netherlands today. Van der Sijs: schrijven, 1100; schreef, 1350; schrappen, 1406.

'schreef' is from 'schrijven' (to write), not from 'schrappen' (to scratch, eliminate by strike-through).) The OED 's earliest citation for 'grotesque' in this sense is 1875, giving stone-letter as a. It would seem to mean 'out of the ordinary' in this usage, as in art grotesque usually means 'elaborately decorated'. Other synonyms include 'Doric' and 'Gothic', commonly used for. Classification [ ] Serif fonts can be broadly classified into one of four subgroups: old style, transitional, Didone and slab serif, in order of first appearance. Old-style [ ]. A modern example of a transitional serif design. Transitional, or baroque, serif typefaces first became common around the mid-18th century until the start of the nineteenth.

They are in between 'old style' and 'modern' fonts, thus the name 'transitional'. Differences between thick and thin lines are more pronounced than they are in old style, but less dramatic than they are in the Didone fonts that followed. Stress is more likely to be vertical, and often the 'R' has a curled tail. The ends of many strokes are marked not by blunt or angled serifs but. Transitional faces often have an italic h that opens outwards at bottom right. Because the genre bridges styles, it is difficult to define where the genre starts and ends. Many of the most popular transitional designs are later creations in the same style.

Fonts from the original period of transitional typefaces include early on the ' in France, then the work of in France, and Rosart in the Netherlands, Pradel in Spain and and in England. Among more recent designs, (1932),,, (1996) and the earlier have been described as transitional and sometimes also as old-style. Later 18th-century transitional typefaces in Britain begin to show influences of Didone typefaces from Europe, described below, and the two genres blur, especially in type intended for body text; is an example of this.

An example of a modern serif Didone, or modern, serif typefaces, which first emerged in the late 18th century, are characterized by extreme contrast between thick and thin lines. These typefaces have a vertical stress and long and fine serifs, with minimal bracketing (constant width).

Serifs tend to be very thin, and vertical lines very heavy. Many Didone fonts are less readable than transitional or old-style serif typefaces. Period examples include,, and. Is a popular contemporary example. The very popular is a softened version of the same basic design, with reduced contrast. Didone typefaces achieved dominance of printing in the early nineteenth-century printing before declining in popularity in the second half of the century and especially in the twentieth as new designs and revivals of old-style faces emerged. In print, Didone fonts are often used on high-gloss for magazines such as, where the paper retains the detail of their high contrast well, and for whose a crisp, 'European' design of type may be considered appropriate.

They are used more often for general-purpose body text, such as book printing, in Europe. They remain popular in the printing of Greek, as the Didot family were among the first to establish a printing press in newly independent Greece. The period of Didone types' greatest popularity coincided with the rapid spread of printed and commercial and the arrival of. Sociology Your Compass New World Ebook Library. As a result, many Didone typefaces are among the earliest designed for use.

Slab serif [ ]. Clarendon, an example of a less geometric slab serif Slab serif typefaces date to about 1800. Originally intended as attention-grabbing designs for posters, they have very thick serifs, which tend to be as thick as the vertical lines themselves. Slab serif fonts vary considerably: some such as have a geometric design with minimal variation in stroke width: they are sometimes described as sans-serif fonts with added serifs.

Others such as those of the model have a structure more like most other serif fonts, though with larger and more obvious serifs. These designs may have bracketed serifs that increase width along their length. Because of the clear, bold nature of the large serifs, slab serif designs are often used for posters and in small print. Many, on which all characters occupy the same amount of horizontal space as in a, are slab-serif designs. While not always purely slab-serif designs, many fonts intended for newspaper use have large slab-like serifs for clearer reading on poor-quality paper. Many early slab-serif types, being intended for posters, only come in styles with the key differentiation being width, and often have no lower-case letters at all.

Examples of slab-serif typefaces include,,,, and. And are examples of newspaper and small print-orientated typefaces with some slab-serif characteristics, often most visible in the bold weights. Other styles [ ]. Serifed text in a dictionary of Serifed fonts are widely used for because they are considered easier to read than fonts in print. However, scientific study on this topic has been inconclusive. Colin Wheildon, who conducted scientific studies from 1982 to 1990, found that sans serif fonts created various difficulties for readers that impaired their comprehension. According to Kathleen Tinkel, studies suggest that 'most sans serif typefaces may be slightly less legible than most serif faces, but.

The difference can be offset by careful setting'. Other studies have found no significant difference in readability for serif or sans serif. Serifed fonts are overwhelmingly preferred for lengthy text printed in books, newspapers and magazines. [ ] For such purposes fonts are more acceptable in Europe than in North America, but still less common than serifed typefaces. [ ] are considered to be on computer screens.

According to Alex Poole, 'we should accept that most reasonably designed typefaces in mainstream use will be equally legible'. A study suggested that serif fonts are more legible on a screen but are not generally preferred to sans serif fonts. Another study indicated that comprehension times for individual words are slightly faster when written in a sans serif font versus a serif font. Most web pages employ sans-serif type.,, and technologies have partially mitigated the perception of serif fonts on screen. Install Windows 1 01 Dosbox Games. Due to the basic constraint of screen resolution (typically 100 pixels per inch or less) the serifs in some fonts can be difficult to discern on screen. Some serif fonts, such as, are specially designed for web readability, employing higher in the letters, as well as sturdier serifs. As serifs originated in inscription, they are generally not used in handwriting.

A common exception is the, where the addition of serifs distinguishes the character from. The printed capital and the are also often handwritten with serifs. Readability debate [ ]. See also: and The earliest books were handwritten by monks in, with many flourishes and embellishments to letters.

The controversy continues over readability, without conclusive results. Editors were formerly taught to use serif, as in older books. Magazines may use as 'cleaner', but possibly decreasing readability. Modern allow the viewer to adjust font family and size. Both serif and sans-serif fonts have their own advantages and disadvantages. Serif fonts usually create lesser confusion among; whereas sans-serif fonts often tend to look indistinguishable (such as uppercase ai () and lowercase eL () ).

The serifs or appendages help to recognize the letter easily. But at the same time, serif fonts sometimes have a trend to bring into action, due to fusion of appendages, especially if ink imprint on paper is not neat enough. East Asian analogues [ ]. From left to right: a serif typeface with serifs in red, a serif typeface and a sans-serif typeface. In the and writing systems, there are common type styles based on the for akin to serif and sans serif fonts in the West.

In Mainland China, the most popular category of serifed-like typefaces for body text is called (宋体, Songti); in Japan, the most popular serif style is called Minchō ( 明朝); and in Taiwan and Hong Kong, it is called Ming (明體, Mingti). The names of these lettering styles come from the and dynasties, when flourished in China. Because the on printing blocks ran horizontally, it was fairly easy to carve horizontal lines with the grain. However, carving vertical or slanted patterns was difficult because those patterns intersect with the grain and break easily. This resulted in a typeface that has thin horizontal strokes and thick vertical strokes [ ]. In accordance with Chinese calligraphy ( style in particular), where each horizontal stroke is ended with a dipping motion of the brush, the ending of horizontal strokes are also thickened [ ].

These design forces resulted in the current Song typeface characterized by thick vertical strokes contrasted with thin horizontal strokes, triangular ornaments at the end of single horizontal strokes, and overall geometrical regularity. In Japanese typography, the equivalent of serifs on and characters are called uroko—'fish scales'. In Chinese, the serifs are called either youjiaoti (有脚体, lit. 'forms with legs') or youchenxianti (有衬线体, lit. 'forms with ornamental lines').

The other common East Asian style of type is called black (黑体/體, Heiti) in Chinese and ( ゴシック体, Goshikku-tai) in Japanese. This group is characterized by lines of even thickness for each stroke, the equivalent of 'sans serif'. This style, first introduced on newspaper headlines, is commonly used on headings, websites, signs and billboards. See also [ ] • •, a similar style in Asian typefaces. The analogs of serifs are called, literally 'fish scales'.

•, an elaborate typographic joke. • • Lists of serif typefaces: • • • Notes [ ]. • Note that this image includes 'Th', common in Adobe typefaces but not found in the sixteenth century. • Specifically, Manutius's type, the first type now classified as 'Garalde', was not so different from other typefaces around at the time.

However, the waves of 'Garalde' faces coming out of France from the 1530s onwards did tend to cleanly displace earlier typefaces, and became an international standard. • Early italics were intended to exist on their own on the page, and so often had very long ascenders and descenders, especially the 'chancery italics' of printers such as Arrighi. • Monotype executive, who commissioned Times New Roman, noted that he hoped that it 'has the merit of not looking as if it had been designed by somebody in particular'.

• It should be realised that 'Transitional' is a somewhat nebulous classification, almost always including Baskerville and other typefaces around this period but also sometimes including nineteenth and twentieth-century reimaginations of old-style faces, such as and, and sometimes some of the later 'old-style' faces such as the work of Caslon and his imitators. In addition, of course Baskerville and others of this period would not have seen their work as 'transitional' but as an end in itself. Eliason (2015) provides a leading modern critique and assessment of the classification, but even in 1930 A.F. Johnson called the term 'vague and unsatisfactory.'

• Additional subgenres of Didone type include 'fat faces' (ultra-bold designs for posters) and 'Scotch Modern' designs (used in the English-speaking world for book and newspaper printing). • Early slab-serif types were given a variety of names for branding purposes, such as Egyptian, Italian, Ionic, Doric, French-Clarendon and Antique, which generally have little or no connection to their actual history. Nonetheless, the names have persisted in use. References [ ].