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Typeface vs Font

post #1 of 30
3/14/11 at 11:17am
Thread Starter 
Ok I know somebody here knows about this. I have googled the hell out of this and gotten nowhere. What is the difference between typeface family, typeface, and font? People seem to be annoyed when these terms are confused, but I fail to see a clear distinction.

For reference, here are the sources that are confusing me:
http://www.fonts.com/aboutfonts/glos...eface%20family
http://www.paratype.com/help/term/terms.asp?code=353
http://www.inspirationbit.com/when-i...typeface-font/

So for example: Is Times the family, Times New Roman the typeface, and then Times New Roman bold one font and Times New Roman italic another font?

One site I read said typeface is what you see and font is what you use. Can someone tell me if that makes sense? Please help.
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post #2 of 30
3/14/11 at 1:23pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by dexterhaven View Post
So for example: Is Times the family, Times New Roman the typeface, and then Times New Roman bold one font and Times New Roman italic another font?
This was always my understanding. A font could be a diferent weight or variation of a typeface. Back before digital typography, a different size of type would be considered a different font as well. If you look at different weights of a font, often you'll find the letter forms themselves change. A font family could encompass something like Century Schoolbook and Century Gothic that, superficially at least, seem to have little in common. edit: Apparently Century Schoolbook and Century Gothic have nothing to do with each other… they're not even from the same type foundry!
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post #3 of 30
3/14/11 at 1:32pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by tagutcow View Post
This was always my understanding. A font could be a diferent weight or variation of a typeface. Back before digital typography, a different size of type would be considered a different font as well. If you look at different weights of a font, often you'll find the letter forms themselves change. A font family could encompass something like Century Schoolbook and Century Gothic that, superficially at least, seem to have little in common.

+1. This pretty much sums up my knowledge on the subject.
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post #4 of 30
3/14/11 at 1:36pm
Typeface: the size, scale, space between, above bellow the letters. Font: The shape of each letter, serif/sans-serif. Font family: The shape of the letters, with variations like Bold or Tall. The shape doesn't change, but the appearance does.
Code:
T H I S   I S   A    W I D E    T Y P E F A C E
Code:
THIS IS NOT
Both are the same font, but with different appearances.
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post #5 of 30
3/14/11 at 1:59pm
^You are dealing with kerning here.
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post #6 of 30
3/14/11 at 2:35pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by Dakota rube View Post
^You are dealing with kerning here.

Yes, but Kerning is a facet of typeface. I called it Wide because I figured that adding even more new words would complicate things. The point was that the font is the letters, typeface is the relationship between the letters and ways they are manipulated.
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post #7 of 30
3/14/11 at 2:49pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by Blackhood View Post
Yes, but Kerning is a facet of typeface. I called it Wide because I figured that adding even more new words would complicate things. The point was that the font is the letters, typeface is the relationship between the letters and ways they are manipulated.

No, kerning is a facet of typography.
..."the relationship between the letters and the ways they are manipulated" is also typography.

Here is an interesting discussion from type professionals:
http://www.typophile.com/node/14701#comment-84393

and another:
http://fontfeed.com/archives/font-or-typeface/
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post #8 of 30
3/14/11 at 3:17pm
The quick answer as I was taught: Typeface: the unique design of a set of typographic characters (i.e. what it looks like) Font: the physical manifestation of those characters (i.e. the actual thing itself) In the dark ages, a font meant all the cast metal pieces that would form a typeface at a single size, say 12-point Times Roman. The metal pieces have since been replaced by digital vector files which can be scaled to any size. The two terms are now practically interchangeable. I'm a graphic designer fwiw.
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post #9 of 30
3/14/11 at 3:33pm
Thread Starter 
Thanks for the information, fellas.


Quote:
Originally Posted by Parker View Post
The quick answer as I was taught:

Typeface: the unique design of a set of typographic characters (i.e. what it looks like)

Font: the physical manifestation of those characters (i.e. the actual thing itself)

In the dark ages, a font meant all the cast metal pieces that would form a typeface at a single size, say 12-point Times Roman. The metal pieces have since been replaced by digital vector files which can be scaled to any size. The two terms are now practically interchangeable.

I'm a graphic designer fwiw.

Ok so the distinction between the two terms has narrowed with the progress of technology? I fail to see a difference between what a thing looks like and the physical manifestation of that thing. To me that's the same thing. The metal pieces thing you said makes a lot of sense to me.

If I walked by a movie poster and liked the way the title looked, would I say, "I wonder what typeface that is?" or "I wonder what font that is?" Or could I say both?
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post #10 of 30
3/14/11 at 3:44pm
seriously what the hell do you guys not know about
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post #11 of 30
3/14/11 at 3:50pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by dexterhaven View Post
Thanks for the information, fellas. Ok so the distinction between the two terms has narrowed with the progress of technology? I fail to see a difference between what a thing looks like and the physical manifestation of that thing. To me that's the same thing. The metal pieces thing you said makes a lot of sense to me. If I walked by a movie poster and liked the way the title looked, would I say, "I wonder what typeface that is?" or "I wonder what font that is?" Or could I say both?
Both, depending on how specific you want to get. Sometimes a font in a different weight or variation is distinctive enough that you would want to refer to it specifically by name. Kubrick liked to use different weights of Gill Sans and Futura in movie posters and titles, to drastically different effects. Here are the different weights of Helvetica: Look at what happens to the x-height of the characters in increasing weights of Helvetica. Also, note well what happens to the tail of the lowercase 'a' between Helvetica 65 and Helvetica 75. Here's a chart comparing Minion Small Caps with Minion Pro actually typed in all-caps (with Wittgenstein for added pretension!):
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post #12 of 30
3/14/11 at 5:39pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by dexterhaven View Post
If I walked by a movie poster and liked the way the title looked, would I say, "I wonder what typeface that is?" or "I wonder what font that is?" Or could I say both?
If I walked by a movie poster, I'd say "what typeface is that?" If I were handing off artwork to the printer, I'd say "I've included the font." But, like I said, they're for all practical purposes interchangeable these days.
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post #13 of 30
3/14/11 at 6:16pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by Parker View Post
If I walked by a movie poster, I'd say "what typeface is that?"

If I were handing off artwork to the printer, I'd say "I've included the font."


But, like I said, they're for all practical purposes interchangeable these days.

I think if there's any distinction to be made today, it's that a piece of writing is in a typeface, but the font associated with that typeface includes all letters, numbers, and symbols as represented in that typeface.
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post #14 of 30
3/14/11 at 6:20pm
The Tractatus!
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post #15 of 30
3/14/11 at 7:25pm
I love typography talk.
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