Quote:
Originally Posted by
Parker 
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 The metal pieces have since been replaced by digital vector files which can be scaled to any size.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.
That's correct, and to add to it the definition of a typeface family (or font family in this day and age) refers to all the fonts of a single design, with different weights, width, and italic/slope variants.
For example:
Gotham is a font family with 64 total fonts. It has four widths. Each width has eight weights, and each of these has a roman and italic. Gotham Black Italic is an example of a single typeface from this family.
However, if the design of two typefaces are significantly different, they're not considered part of the same family even if they're conceptually related. For example,
Gotham Rounded is
not considered part of the Gotham family, but Gotham, Gotham Rounded, and
Gotham Serif are all considered part of the Gotham
superfamily. As another example, Scala (serif) and Scala Sans are not considered part of the same family, but can be grouped together as a superfamily.
Now, to illustrate where the distinction between "font" and "typeface" can apply even with digital fonts, take a look at
H&FJ Didot. Notice that the fonts here are designed for use in different sizes. (The details at the larger sizes are much finer.) So, there are 7
fonts that make up the
typeface Didot Light Roman, designed for use at 6, 11, 16, 24, 42, 64, and 96 points in size. This is a throwback to the metal type era when each size of a typeface was cut separately, so the larger sizes could be given finer detail since the details would still hold up when printed. Just by looking at the sample page, you can see how the fine lines in Didot 96 basically disappear because it is shown at a smaller size than it was designed for.
