In-depth: Font Family pages

The core of the site are the Font Family pages. We have arranged all the fonts on the site (10,000 individual fonts!) into families. So, for instance, you will find several different styles of the Futura family.

• Take a look at the Futura page for example.

At the top, you will see information about the origin of the typeface. The family name listed at the top of the page is followed by the name of the foundry that created, hold the license for, and/or currently sell this font, along with the original release year of the font. We always list the name chosen by the particular foundry.

Font companies are called foundries because until the 1960s fonts were made by casting pieces of type from molten lead. In many countries, typefaces designs (i.e. the forms of the letters) are not always protected by copyright law, but typeface names can be protected as trademarks. Since that, some foundries have created “derivative designs” which are similar or sometimes identical to fonts published by other companies. Also, in some cases, designers have licensed the same typeface (or very similar typefaces) to more than one company. Because of trademark restrictions, if a company wishes to publish a derivative design based on an existing typeface, the name must be licensed from the trademark holder. If this is not possible, the company chooses an alternative name. Please note that digital fonts created by various foundries may differ in letterform details or in spacing, even if they are based on the same typeface design – design masters of a particular typeface used to be revised and redrawn many times to match various typesetting and printing environments, and the digital data was created using different tools.

The vendor is the company (foundry) which is the publisher of the particular digital font data.

Many foundries have licensing contracts regarding the font distribution, so you will find the same typeface being offered by different vendors. Not all those variants are on sale at Myfonts.com, but they are listed in our catalog.   Please note that typefaces having identical names, may or may not differ in letterform details or spacing. Some foundries have re-digitized the designs under license, while others have cross-licensed the same digital font files. In some cases, the digital version has been originally prepared in a particular font format (e.g. Ikarus) by one foundry, but then the sublicensors have converted the fonts to PostScript and TrueType themselves, using different tools. Please also note that some foundries have updated their typefaces, for example by adding the euro character, adding accented letters or by creating additional styles, while others still have the original versions.

• Take a look at ITC Officina Sans for example.

If you want to buy a particular font that you need to use with documents created by your customers or partners, make sure that you and your customers and partners use the same versions of the fonts, published by the same vendor. We at Myfonts.com will attempt to provide as much information as possible to make the choice easy.

We sometimes list the origin of the typeface – the name of the original, historical trademark holder, a company which usually doesn't exist anymore. If the family shown is a derivative design, you will see the original name of the typeface below. In such cases, the page of the original family may contain additional information about the typeface, along with a list of other foundries' cuts of that particular design, and the information about the typeface designer.

• Take a look at Zapf Calligraphic 801 and Palatino for example.
• Click on the name of the particular font foundry for more information about it.
• View a comprehensive list of all foundries featured on our site.

Below the family name, the designer(s) of the typeface is listed.

Some fonts have several people who contributed to the design in different ways. We try to credit all significant design input.

• Take a look at Goudy Handtooled for example.
• Click on the name of the particular font designer for more information about her/him.
• View a comprehensive list of all designers featured on our site.

The body of the page contains the styles that belong to this family. Some fonts, like Futura and Nimbus Sans have many styles, but some have just one, like Tango.

Many of Linotype’s fonts on the Windows platform are arranged into four-style “Windows families” — regular, italic, bold, and bold italic. Sometimes, only the “regular" version will appear in your font menu, even if you only installed the bold or italic version. This is particularly true for Bold and Black styles — Linotype tends to group Light and Bold styles as one family, and Medium and Black as another. The solution: select the (wrong) font name in your font menu, then click the “bold” or “italic” buttons as appropriate to get the font you were expecting.

Some styles are available in a number of packages and formats. Along the right-hand side of the page, shopping cart icons tell you that this font is for sale.

• Visit the shopping cart help page, for more information about using the shopping cart.
• Visit the font formats help page, for more information about the platfoms and formats.

Below the style list is the Show me… section, where you can easily click on links to MyFonts pages that have something to do with this font, including the Show me more like this! button.

Hand-picked links are provided for many fonts, which will take you to other websites with information about the font.

At the bottom of the page, you may find articles about the font. Many of the fonts on MyFonts.com have at least one article displayed here.

If you want a closer look at any particular Font Style, click on testdrive to go to the test drive page. Here you can try out any font of your choice. You can type in your own words and see them displayed using the font at any size you choose.

You can also view all characters available in the font by clicking on the character map link next to each font style.

• Visit the Show me more like this! help page for more information about this feature.
• Visit the test drive help page for more information about this feature.
• View a comprehensive list of all articles featured on our site.

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