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Claude
Garamond
meets
the
Mona
Lisa
 1952 marked the
500th anniversary of the birth of Leonardo da Vinci, painter of the
Mona Lisa. The lettering above is set in the SGaramond, which is
based on the typefaces of Claude Garamond from the 1540s.
References Wikipedia: |
Fonts have visual and technical properties which help classify them into categories as follows: Realist Fonts. Sans serif fonts with little variation in stroke width, and uppercase letters of nearly equal character widths. 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 or long passages of text on good quality paper. They have a low x-height and long ascenders and descenders. They are designed to be printed at sizes of 9 to 12 points with normal line spacing. They have a classical look. Newspaper Fonts. Serif fonts designed for printing columns of text in newspapers under poor print conditions. They 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. They have a common look. 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. Web browsers have strict font requirements Web browsers have stricter font requirements than printers because they have lower resolution. Some fonts that print well are not very legible on-screen, especially in small sizes. The font properties that lead to legible fonts on-screen are as follows: Weight. The best weights to use are Normal, Medium, Demibold, and Bold. Be careful with fonts that are lighter than Light or heavier than Bold. Italics. Avoid the use of italic fonts. They do not rasterize well on-screen. X-Height. Use fonts with relatively large x-heights. Loops. Use fonts with relatively large loops. Otherwise, the holes in the loops tend to fill in. Size. Use a size that is 8 points or larger. Very few fonts are legible on-screen at sizes smaller than 8 points. Some kinds of fonts that generally meet these requirements are
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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. |
| Updated May
17,
2010 |