Font superfamily

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The PT family, showing the related structures of letters PT superfamily.png
The PT family, showing the related structures of letters
Thesis by Lucas DeGroot Typeface-thesis.jpg
Thesis by Lucas DeGroot

In typography, a font superfamily or typeface superfamily is a font family containing fonts that fall into multiple classifications. [1]

Contents

The norm in a superfamily is to start from an identical character shape; class-specific features such as serifs are added to that shape. The result is a set of fonts with a similar appearance that belong to different classes such as sans, serif, slab serif, rounded. [2] [3]

Superfamilies may include fonts grouped together for a common purpose that are not exactly complementary in letterform structure. They can allow organizations to expand their image and style while maintaining stylistic consistency. For example, BBC Reith font superfamily was commissioned by the BBC in 2018 to facilitate 'typographic expression' and consists of three styles (condensed, sans, serif) as well as a multitude of weights. [4] [5]

Notable superfamilies

Same letterforms

Berlingske
by Playtype, comprising Berlingske Serif, Berlingske Serif Display, Berlingske Serif Stencil, Berlingske sans, Berlingske Sans Display, Berlingske sans Stencil, Berlingske Slab, Berlingske Slab Display, Berlingske Slab Stencil, Berlingske Typewriter.
FF Meta
by Erik Spiekermann, comprising FF Meta (sans), FF Meta Serif and FF Meta Headline
FF Nexus
by Martin Majoor, comprising FF Nexus Sans, FF Nexus Serif, FF Nexus Mix and FF Nexus Typewriter
FF Quadraat
by Fred Smeijers, comprising FF Quadraat (serif), FF Quadraat Sans, FF Quadraat Display and FF Quadraat Headliner
FF Scala
by Martin Majoor, comprising FF Scala (serif) and FF Scala Sans
FF Seria
by Martin Majoor, comprising FF Seria (serif) and FF Seria Sans
Generis
by Erik Faulhaber, comprising Generis Sans, Generis Serif, Generis Simple and Generis Slab
ITC Humana
by Timothy Donaldso, comprising ITC Humana Sans, ITC Humana Serif and ITC Humana Script
ITC Officina
by Erik Spiekermann and Just van Rossum, comprising ITC Officina Sans, ITC Officina Serif and ITC Officina Display
Linotype Authentic
by Karin Huschka, comprising Linotype Authentic Sans, Linotype Authentic Serif, Linotype Authentic Small Serif and Linotype Authentic Stencil
Linotype Compatil
by Olaf Leu, comprising Compatil Text, Compatil Fact, Compatil Letter and Compatil Exquisit
Lucida
by Charles Bigelow and Kris Holmes, comprising Lucida Sans, Lucida Serif, Lucida Typewriter Sans, Lucida Typewriter Serif and Lucida Math
Merriweather
by Eben Sorkin, comprising Merriweather and Merriweather Sans
Penumbra
by Lance Hidy, comprising Penumbra Sans, Penumbra Serif, Penumbra Half Serif and Penumbra Flare
PT Fonts
by Alexandra Korolkova et al, comprising PT Serif, PT Sans and PT Mono.
Rotis
by Otl Aicher, comprising rotis serif, rotis semi-serif, rotis semi-sans and rotis sans
Sassoon
by Rosemary Sassoon and Adrian William, comprising Sassoon Sans, Sassoon Book, Sassoon Primary, Sassoon Infant and Sassoon Sans Slope
Source
by Paul D. Hunt and Frank Grießhammer, comprising Source Sans Pro, Source Serif Pro and Source Code Pro
Stone
by Sumner Stone, comprising Stone Serif, Stone Sans and Stone Informal
Thesis
by Lucas de Groot, comprising TheSans, TheSerif, TheMix and TheAntiqua
Trajan
both Trajan (serif, designed by Carol Twombly) and Trajan Sans. No lower-case.

Same purpose

Computer Modern
by Donald E. Knuth, comprising cmr (antiqua), cmss (grotesque) and cmtt (monospaced)
DejaVu and Bitstream Vera
comprising DejaVu Sans, DejaVu Sans Mono and DejaVu Serif.
Droid
by Steve Matteson, comprising Droid Sans, Droid Serif and Droid Sans Mono.
IBM Plex
by Mike Abbink, comprising IBM Plex Sans, IBM Plex Sans Condensed, IBM Plex Serif and IBM Plex Mono
Noto fonts
by Google, comprising Noto Sans, Noto Serif and Noto Mono, an expansion of the Droid family. It supports a wide range of languages.
Roboto
by Christian Robertson, comprising Roboto, Roboto Slab and Roboto Mono
Corporate ASE
by Kurt Weidemann, comprising antiqua, sans and Egyptienne
Liberation
by Steve Matteson, comprising Liberation Sans, Liberation Serif and Liberation Mono

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Sans-serif</span> Typeface classification for letterforms without serifs

In typography and lettering, a sans-serif, sans serif, gothic, or simply sans letterform is one that does not have extending features called "serifs" at the end of strokes. Sans-serif typefaces tend to have less stroke width variation than serif typefaces. They are often used to convey simplicity and modernity or minimalism. For the purposes of type classification, sans-serif designs are usually divided into these major groups: § Grotesque, § Neo-grotesque, § Geometric, § Humanist, and § Other or mixed.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Typeface</span> Set of characters that share common design features

A typeface is a design of letters, numbers and other symbols, to be used in printing or for electronic display. Most typefaces include variations in size, weight, slope, width, and so on. Each of these variations of the typeface is a font.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Helvetica</span> Neo-grotesque sans-serif typeface

Helvetica, also known by its original name Neue Haas Grotesk, is a widely-used sans-serif typeface developed in 1957 by Swiss typeface designer Max Miedinger and Eduard Hoffmann.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Erik Spiekermann</span> German typographer, designer and writer (born 1947)

Erik Spiekermann is a German typographer, designer and writer. He is an honorary professor at the University of the Arts Bremen and ArtCenter College of Design.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Lucida</span> Typeface family

Lucida is an extended family of related typefaces designed by Charles Bigelow and Kris Holmes and released from 1984 onwards. The family is intended to be extremely legible when printed at small size or displayed on a low-resolution display – hence the name, from 'lucid'.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Roboto</span> Open-source typeface family

Roboto is a neo-grotesque sans-serif typeface family developed by Google as the system font for its mobile operating system Android, and released in 2011 for Android 4.0 "Ice Cream Sandwich".

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Slab serif</span> Type of serif typeface

In typography, a slab serif typeface is a type of serif typeface characterized by thick, block-like serifs. Serif terminals may be either blunt and angular (Rockwell), or rounded (Courier). Slab serifs were introduced in the early nineteenth century.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">DIN 1451</span> Grotesque sans-serif typeface

DIN 1451 is a sans-serif typeface that is widely used for traffic, administrative and technical applications.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">FF Scala</span> Old-style serif typeface

FF Scala is an old-style serif typeface designed by Dutch typeface designer Martin Majoor in 1991 for the Muziekcentrum Vredenburg in Utrecht, the Netherlands. The FF Scala font family was named for the Teatro alla Scala (1776–78) in Milan, Italy. Like many contemporary Dutch serif faces, FF Scala is not an academic revival of a single historic typeface but shows influences of several historic models. Similarities can be seen with William Addison Dwiggins' 1935 design for the typeface Electra in its clarity of form, and rhythmic, highly calligraphic italics. Eric Gill's 1931 typeface Joanna, with its old style armature but nearly square serifs, is also similar in its nearly mono-weighted stroke width.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Joanna (typeface)</span> Typeface designed by Eric Gill

Joanna is a serif typeface designed by Eric Gill (1882–1940) from 1930 to 1931 that was named for one of his daughters. Gill chose Joanna for setting An Essay on Typography, a book by Gill on his thoughts on typography, typesetting and page design. He described it as "a book face free from all fancy business".

Generis is the name of a typeface designed by type designer Erik Faulhaber. Generis was first published in November 2006 by Linotype.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Droid (typeface)</span> Typeface family

Droid is a font family first released in 2007 and created by Ascender Corporation for use by the Open Handset Alliance platform Android and licensed under the Apache License. The fonts are intended for use on the small screens of mobile handsets and were designed by Steve Matteson of Ascender Corporation.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Martin Majoor</span> Dutch type designer and graphic designer (born 1960)

Martin Majoor is a Dutch type designer and graphic designer. As of 2006, he had worked since 1997 in both Arnhem, Netherlands, and Warsaw, Poland.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">PT Fonts</span> Typeface family

The Public Type or PT Fonts are a family of free and open-source fonts released from 2009 onwards, comprising PT Sans, PT Serif and PT Mono. They were commissioned from the design agency ParaType by Rospechat, a department of the Russian Ministry of Communications, to celebrate the 300th anniversary of Peter the Great's orthography reform and to create a font family that supported all the different variations of Cyrillic script used by the minority languages of Russia, as well as the Latin alphabet.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Open Sans</span> Humanist sans-serif typeface

Open Sans is an open source humanist sans-serif typeface that was designed by Steve Matteson under commission from Google. It was released in 2011 and is based on his earlier design called Droid Sans, which was specifically created for Android mobile devices but with slight modifications to its width.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Noto fonts</span> Multilingual font family from Google

Noto is a free font family comprising over 100 individual computer fonts, which are together designed to cover all the scripts encoded in the Unicode standard.As of November 2024, Noto covers around 1,000 languages and 162 writing systems. As of October 2016, Noto fonts cover all 93 scripts defined in Unicode version 6.1, although fewer than 30,000 of the nearly 75,000 CJK unified ideographs in version 6.0 are covered. In total, Noto fonts cover over 77,000 characters, which is around half of the 149,186 characters defined in Unicode 15.0.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">San Francisco (sans-serif typeface)</span> Neo-grotesque sans-serif typeface

San Francisco is a neo-grotesque typeface made by Apple Inc. It was first released to developers on November 18, 2014. It is the first new typeface designed at Apple in nearly twenty years and has been inspired by Helvetica and DIN.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">IBM Plex</span> Open source typeface family

IBM Plex is an open source typeface superfamily conceptually designed and developed by Mike Abbink at IBM in collaboration with Bold Monday to reflect the design principles of IBM and to be used for all brand material across the company internationally. Plex replaces Helvetica as the IBM corporate typeface after more than fifty years, freeing the company from extensive license payments in the process.

References

  1. Seeliger, Frank (2016-04-01), "Machen Google, Wikipedia und Amazon und Co. Bibliotheken überflüssig?", Hochschulmanagement in Theorie und Praxis : Festschrift für László Ungvári, Wildau Verlag GmbH, doi:10.15771/978-3-945560-03-7_12, ISBN   978-3-945560-03-7 , retrieved 2023-06-27
  2. "Superfamilies". Google Fonts. Retrieved 2023-06-27.
  3. "What are font superfamilies and why do we need them?". Monotype. 2020-05-06. Retrieved 2023-06-27.
  4. "Super Families - Fonts.com". Fonts.com. Retrieved 2023-06-27.
  5. "Typography". GEL Website. 2017-08-07. Retrieved 2024-06-10.