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.
In typography, a serif is a small line or stroke regularly attached to the end of a larger stroke in a letter or symbol within a particular font or family of fonts. A typeface or "font family" making use of serifs is called a serif typeface, and a typeface that does not include them is sans-serif. Some typography sources refer to sans-serif typefaces as "grotesque" or "Gothic", and serif typefaces as "roman".
A typeface is the design of lettering that can include variations in size, weight, slope, width, and so on. Each of these variations of the typeface is a font.
Helvetica or Neue Haas Grotesk is a widely used sans-serif typeface developed in 1957 by Swiss typeface designer Max Miedinger and Eduard Hoffmann.
Matthew Carter is a British type designer. A 2005 New Yorker profile described him as 'the most widely read man in the world' by considering the amount of text set in his commonly used fonts.
Frutiger is a series of typefaces named after its Swiss designer, Adrian Frutiger. Frutiger is a humanist sans-serif typeface, intended to be clear and highly legible at a distance or at small text sizes. A very popular design worldwide, type designer Steve Matteson described its structure as "the best choice for legibility in pretty much any situation" at small text sizes, while Erik Spiekermann named it as "the best general typeface ever".
Arial, sometimes marketed or displayed in software as Arial MT, is a sans-serif typeface and set of computer fonts in the neo-grotesque style. Fonts from the Arial family are packaged with all versions of Microsoft Windows from Windows 3.1 onwards, some other Microsoft software applications, Apple's macOS and many PostScript 3 computer printers. The typeface was designed in 1982, by Robin Nicholas and Patricia Saunders, for Monotype Typography. It was created to be metrically identical to the popular typeface Helvetica, with all character widths identical, so that a document designed in Helvetica could be displayed and printed correctly without having to pay for a Helvetica license.
Gill Sans is a humanist sans-serif typeface designed by Eric Gill and released by the British branch of Monotype from 1928 onwards.
Georgia is a serif typeface designed in 1993 by Matthew Carter and hinted by Tom Rickner for the Microsoft Corporation. It was intended as a serif typeface that would appear elegant but legible when printed small or on low-resolution screens. The typeface is inspired by Scotch Roman designs of the 19th century and was based on designs for a print typeface on which Carter was working when contacted by Microsoft; this would be released under the name Miller the following year. The typeface's name referred to a tabloid headline, "Alien heads found in Georgia."
Franklin Gothic and its related faces are a large family of sans-serif typefaces in the industrial or grotesque style developed in the early years of the 20th century by the type foundry American Type Founders (ATF) and credited to its head designer Morris Fuller Benton. “Gothic” was a contemporary term meaning sans-serif.
Didone is a genre of serif typeface that emerged in the late 18th century and was the standard style of general-purpose printing during the nineteenth. It is characterized by:
In metal typesetting, a font is a particular size, weight and style of a typeface. Each font is a matched set of type, with a piece for each glyph. A typeface consists of a range of such fonts that shared an overall design.
Impact is a sans-serif typeface in the industrial or grotesk style designed by Geoffrey Lee in 1965 and released by the Stephenson Blake foundry of Sheffield. It is well known for having been included in the core fonts for the Web package and distributed with Microsoft Windows since Windows 98. By 2014, it had been used extensively in image macros or other Internet memes.
Haettenschweiler is a sans-serif typeface in the grotesque style that is very bold and condensed. It is intended for headlines and display text.
News Gothic is a sans-serif typeface in the grotesque or industrial style. It was designed by Morris Fuller Benton and released in 1908 by his employer American Type Founders (ATF). News Gothic is similar in proportion and structure to Franklin Gothic, also designed by Benton, but lighter.
Monotype Grotesque is a family of sans-serif typefaces released by the Monotype Corporation for its hot metal typesetting system. It belongs to the grotesque or industrial genre of early sans-serif designs. Like many early sans-serifs, it forms a sprawling family designed at different times.
Compacta is a condensed sans-serif typeface designed by Fred Lambert for Letraset in 1963. It is visually similar to the typefaces Impact and Haettenschweiler, though Compacta has a distinctively square shape in comparison. Letraset was a dry transfer system, widely used by amateur or small-scale lettering projects, although many professional designers used it as well. Compacta was Letraset's first original typeface design, and proved widely popular. Rights to it were acquired by Linotype and others, leading to it becoming available in other formats such as digitally.
Typeface anatomy describes the graphic elements that make up letters in a typeface.
A display typeface is a typeface that is intended for use at large sizes for headings, rather than for extended passages of body text.
The Stephenson Blake Grotesque fonts are a series of sans-serif typefaces created by the type foundry Stephenson Blake of Sheffield, England, mostly around the beginning of the twentieth century.
