Module: Type Families
A type family is a range of typeface designs that are variations of one basic style of alphabet. There are hundreds – maybe thousands – of typeface families. This module will provide information and insight into the most important.
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About Typeface Families
When typefaces were first invented, the notion of having a family of type hadn’t occurred to anyone. All fonts were simply roman designs. In the early 16th century, cursive – or italic (named after Italy, where the idea was popularized) – type was introduced. There were still no typeface families; romans were one style of type and italics were another – much like serif and sans serif.
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Guide to Typestyles: Didone Typefaces
The term Didone – a combination of Didot and Bodoni – aptly describes Neoclassical (or Modern) typefaces. First popular from the late 18th through the 19th centuries, they have inspired many contemporary interpretations. We showcase a sampling of seven well-designed options we find both useful and versatile.
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Guide to Typestyles: Old Style Typefaces
A wide array of popular old style type families is available in digital form today. In addition to old style figures, many of them offer small caps, swashes and other distinctive characters. We present our selection of seven of the most useful and well-designed families.
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Guide to Typestyles: Slab Serifs
Slab serif typefaces, with their block-like appenditures, project solidity, style, and confidence. We survey seven that are particularly well-designed, to help you select the best slab for the job.
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The Letter A
No one knows why ‘A’ is the first letter of our alphabet. Some think it’s because this letter represents one of the most common vowel sounds in ancient languages of the western hemisphere. Other sources argue against this theory because there were no vowel sounds in the Phoenician language. (The Phoenician alphabet is generally thought to be the basis of the one we use today.)
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The Letter B
Many people consider shelter to be the second most important ingredient for human survival. Coincidentally, the second letter in our alphabet evolved from the ancient Egyptian hieroglyph signifying shelter.
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The Letter C
For much of their history, the ‘C’ and ‘G’ evolved as the same letter. The Phoenicians named this letter gimel, meaning “camel,” and used it to indicate the sound roughly equivalent to our present-day ‘g.’ They drew the character with two quick diagonal strokes, creating something that looked like an upside-down ‘V’ that is short on one side.
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The Letter D
When the Egyptians used the symbol for a hand (their word “deret”) to indicate the sound value of “D,” it served its purpose adequately. However, when the Phoenicians adopted much of the Egyptian hieratic system of writing (a kind of abridged form of hieroglyphics), they didn’t know which objects many of the signs actually depicted.
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The Letter E
As any Scrabble player will tell you, ‘e’ has always been an important letter in our alphabet, used more often than any other. In the Internet age, however, ‘e’ has achieved near-ubiquitous popularity, since it can be tacked on at will on to almost any other word to imply the white heat of the technological revolution.
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The Letter F
In its earliest years, the letter that evolved into our F was an Egyptian hieroglyph that literally was a picture of a snake. This was around 3,000 B.C.
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The Letter G
Generally speaking, there are no launch dates for the letters of our alphabet. For the most part they’ve come down to us through an evolutionary process, with shapes that developed slowly over a long period of time. The G, however, is an exception. In fact, our letter G made its official debut in 312 B.C.
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The Letter H
Frankly, of all the letters, the H is the most boring. Stable and symmetrical, with both feet planted firmly on the ground, the H has been predictable in its design and use throughout much of its history.
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The Letters I and J
The letters I and J follow each other in the alphabet and look a lot alike. So it comes as no surprise to discover that our ninth and tenth letters started out as the same character.
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The Letter K
Some letters are slaves to fashion. They’ll change their images for any number of reasons: to satisfy the whim of some snazzy new writing utensil, or even because they’ve taken up with a different language. The K, however, sticks to the tried and true. It’s remained virtually unchanged for the last three thousand years or so.
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The Letter L
The Egyptian equivalent of our L was first represented by the image of a lion. Over centuries, this image evolved into a much simpler hieratic character that became the basis of the letter we know today. When the Phoenicians developed their alphabet around 1000 B.C., the ‘el’ sound was depicted by several more-simplified versions of the hieratic symbol. Some were rounded and some were angular.
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The Letter M
Historians tell us that our current M started out as the Egyptian hieroglyph for “owl.” Over thousands of years, this simple line drawing was further distilled into the hieratic symbol for the ‘em’ sound. Eventually, the great-grandparent of our M looked a bit like a handwritten ‘m’ balanced on the tip of one stroke.
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The Letter N
The early form of the N was always closely associated with water. When the sign was used by the Phoenicians more than three thousand years ago, it was called “nun” (pronounced noon), which meant fish. Before the Phoenicians, the Egyptian hieroglyph (or picture sign) for the ‘n’ sound was a wavy line representing water.
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The Letter O
Some believe that our present O evolved from a Phoenician symbol; others vote for an even more ancient Egyptian heiroglyph as the source. The most fanciful explanation, though, is offered by Rudyard Kipling in his Just So Stories. “How the Alphabet was Made” recounts how a Neolithic tribesman and his precocious daughter invent the alphabet by drawing pictures to represent sounds. After finishing the A and Y (inspired by the mouth and tail of a carp), the child, Taffy, asks her father to make another sound that she can translate into a picture.
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The Letter P
New words are being invented all the time to keep up with changes in technology and daily life. This may have been one of the reasons the Phoenicians came up with the innovative notion of a phonetic alphabet: one in which the letters represented sounds. It was an elegant and practical idea, and it’s obviously had a huge impact on the nature of writing to this day.
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The Letter Q
For as long as there have been Qs, designers have been having fun with the letter’s tail. This opportunity for typographic playfulness may even date back to the Phoenicians: the original ancestor of our Q was called “ooph,” the Phoenician word for monkey. The ooph represented an emphatic guttural sound not found in English, or in any Indo-European language.
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The Letter R
The letter R is a more exceptional character than it first appears. It’s not a P with a tail or a B with a broken bowl; when drawn correctly, the R is rich with subtle details and delicate proportions. It can be the most challenging letter for type designers to create, and the most – dare we say – rewarding.
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The Letter S
Any way you look at it, the S is a complicated letter. Not only is it one of the more challenging characters to draw, but the story of its evolution has more twists, turns, and reverses than its shape.
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Letter T
Four thousand years ago, just as today, people who could not write used a simple cross to sign letters and formal documents. One might logically assume that this common signature stand-in was the origin of our present X. But what looked like an X to ancient writers eventually gave birth to the Roman T.
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Letters U, V, W and Y
The story of U is also the story of our V, W and Y. In fact, the origins of U even have something in common with the F, the sixth letter of our alphabet.
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Letter X
Though the origins of this letter are actually somewhat "fishy," the X made its way into our alphabet by way of the usual suspects: the Phoenicians, the Greeks, and the Romans.
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Letter Z
Nowadays we can't imagine a parade of letters without a Z bringing up the rear, but our 26th letter almost never made it into the alphabet at all.
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Punctuation
Punctuation marks tell us when to slow down, stop, get excited or lift a quizzical eyebrow.
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Ampersand
Like many letters in our current alphabet, the ampersand probably began as a convenience. The Latin word et (meaning “and”) was first written as two distinct letters, but over time the ‘e’ and ‘t’ were combined into a ligature of sorts.
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Numbers
Roman numerals can be quite attractive in chapter headings, but aren't you glad you don't have to do your taxes with them? Thank the Arabs for that; if not for their numbering system, Western mathematics would be X times as hard.