Welcome back everyone to our short talks on The Classifications of Typography here at Noble Desktop. The type category we are looking at in this video is the Serif Typeface
Video Transcription
Welcome back everyone to our short talks on The Classifications of Typography here at Noble Desktop.
The type category we are looking at in this video is the Serif Typeface
In typography, the word serif refers to the short lines which protrude from letter forms and give them a kind of a flare or foot.
Serif fonts first appeared as Greek writings on stone and in the Latin alphabet. However modern serif fonts came on the scene around the 1780s, The two type designers known for these first serif fonts were Firmin Didot in France and Giambattista Bodoni in Italy. Modern serifs as we have come to know them today were born from the work of these 2 designers.
Now we will look at a few examples of Serif Typefaces
This category evokes feelings of history, tradition, honesty, and integrity.
As you can see in these standard serif fonts examples…
These typefaces are characterized by the short lines or strokes that project from the ends of the letters as already mentioned. Serif font characters often have variations in the thickness within their letterforms.
Next are some examples of serif fonts used in real-world designs.
New York Magazine
These pages from New York Magazine use the font, Kepler. We can see that Serif fonts are a great choice for large blocks of printed text as their serifs help lead the reader’s eye across the letters.
Because of their legibility, you see them widely used in books, magazines, and newspapers.
Whole Foods Logo
Here, the thick, and solid, the Whole Foods logo uses the Brighton Bold font … The logo design carries a sense of ampleness of the brand, as well as friendliness, and quality. Its unique letter o, with its leaf detail, acts as a nod to the concept of freshness.
Now we have the Vogue Magazine Masthead. It uses the Didot font with its dramatically contrasting thick and thin strokes which evoke the graceful lines of well-tailored clothing.
The popular Burger King app features the Aesthet Nova Black typeface for headlines, subheads, and sell copy. As you can see, I have placed it here at the end of the Serif category. While the serifs themselves are not particularly prominent, depending on the weight that is used it falls on the cusp of serif, slab serif, and decorative typeface categories. It is on the more elaborate end of the spectrum for a serif typeface as it features rounded serifs, ball terminals as well as soft corners.
Next up in our line-up on the classifications of typography will be the slab serif category.
