Rubicon Font Advisor

Looking at font properties

Looking at font properties helps you select a suitable font for your application. Fonts have visual and technical properties as follows:

Serif. A part of a character which crosses the end of a major stroke.

Sans Serif. Without serifs.

X-Height. Height of the lowercase letter x, above the baseline.

Ascender Height. Height of the lowercase ascenders, above the baseline.

Cap Height. Height of the capital letters, above the baseline.

Descender Depth. Depth of the lowercase descenders, below the baseline.

Microsoft Core Fonts for the Web

For further details on Microsoft's Core Fonts for the Web, refer to the following web site:

Microsoft Core fonts for the Web

Font classifications describe visual and technical properties

Rubicon classifies fonts into categories according to their visual and technical properties as follows:

			Realist Fonts. Sans serif fonts with little variation in stroke width, and uppercase letters of nearly equal width. Also known as Neo-Grotesque. They have a neutral look.
			Humanist Fonts. Sans serif fonts with contrasting stroke widths, and uppercase letters of variable widths, based on the letters inscribed on Trajan's Column. They have a calligraphic look.
			Geometric Fonts. Sans serif fonts whose letters are based upon geometric shapes. They have a modern look.
			Book Fonts. Serif fonts designed for printing books and long passages of text, on good quality paper. They have a classical look. Book fonts have a low x-height and long ascenders and descenders. They are designed to be printed at sizes of about 12 points, with normal line spacing.
			Newspaper Fonts. Serif fonts designed for printing columns of text in newspapers, under poor print conditions. They have a common look. Newspaper fonts have a tall x-height and short ascenders and descenders. They are designed to be printed at sizes of about 8.5 points, with tight line spacing.
			Packaging Fonts. Variants of other fonts, with an increased x-height. Can be serif or sans serif. Legible in smaller sizes, especially in product packaging. They have a commercial look.
			Condensed Fonts. Fonts with relatively narrow characters. The characters retain the same heights and stroke weights as regular width characters. Condensed type is used to fit more text into a restricted area without losing legibility. The main application is for tabular composition including tables, forms, lists, and directories.

Computer typography begins with Microsoft Core Fonts for the Web

Today's standard computer typefaces originated with Microsoft's Core fonts for the Web in 1996. The typefaces that include four variants - regular, italic, bold, and bold italic - are as follows:

Times and Arial. Designed to be printed.
Georgia, Verdana, and Trebuchet. Designed for on-screen display.

These are excellent typefaces to start with, but eventually you're going to want more typefaces that express different moods and provide specific typographic features.

Typography requires more than Times and Arial

Times and Arial are designed for printing. They are popular typefaces, of good design, but they lack certain functionalities.

Times was designed in 1931 as a serif newspaper face but no one uses it for newspapers today. It's good typeface for books and similar text work but not ideal. As a book face it is narrower and plainer than other popular alternatives.

Arial was designed in 1990 as an alternative to Helvetica, a general purpose sans serif typeface. It's drawbacks are that it doesn't print as well as Helvetica, and it isn't available in as many weights and widths as Helvetica.

Printing requires different fonts from browsing

Georgia, Verdana, and Trebuchet are designed for on-screen display. Their legibility on-screen is outstanding, but they don't print as well as Times and Arial. This is generally true of fonts that are optimized for on-screen viewing. The same properties that make them more legible on-screen, like increased x-height and simplified character shapes, make them less legible in print.

Updated Aug. 16, 2009