![<span class="mw-page-title-main">Typography</span> Art of arranging type](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/e/e4/Trajan_typeface_specimen.svg/320px-Trajan_typeface_specimen.svg.png)
Typography is the art and technique of arranging type to make written language legible, readable and appealing when displayed. The arrangement of type involves selecting typefaces, point sizes, line lengths, line-spacing (leading), and letter-spacing (tracking), as well as adjusting the space between pairs of letters (kerning). The term typography is also applied to the style, arrangement, and appearance of the letters, numbers, and symbols created by the process. Type design is a closely related craft, sometimes considered part of typography; most typographers do not design typefaces, and some type designers do not consider themselves typographers. Typography also may be used as an ornamental and decorative device, unrelated to the communication of information.
![<span class="mw-page-title-main">Optima</span> 1958 typeface by Hermann Zapf](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/7/70/Optima_font_sample.svg/320px-Optima_font_sample.svg.png)
Optima is a humanist sans-serif typeface designed by Hermann Zapf and released by the D. Stempel AG foundry, Frankfurt, West Germany in 1958.
![<span class="mw-page-title-main">Calligraphy</span> Visual art related to writing](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/e/e9/Attavante_degli_Attavanti_-_Leaf_from_a_Gradual-_Initial_P_with_the_Nativity_-_2003.173_-_Cleveland_Museum_of_Art.tif/lossy-page1-320px-Attavante_degli_Attavanti_-_Leaf_from_a_Gradual-_Initial_P_with_the_Nativity_-_2003.173_-_Cleveland_Museum_of_Art.tif.jpg)
Calligraphy is a visual art related to writing. It is the design and execution of lettering with a pen, ink brush, or other writing instrument. Contemporary calligraphic practice can be defined as "the art of giving form to signs in an expressive, harmonious, and skillful manner".
![<span class="mw-page-title-main">Sans-serif</span> Typeface classification for letterforms without serifs](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/a/af/Ming_serif.svg/320px-Ming_serif.svg.png)
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 and § Neo-grotesque, § Geometric, § Humanist and § Other or mixed.
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".
![<span class="mw-page-title-main">Typeface</span> Set of characters that share common design features](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/4/45/A_Specimen_by_William_Caslon.jpg/320px-A_Specimen_by_William_Caslon.jpg)
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">Gill Sans</span> Humanist sans-serif typeface family developed by Monotype](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/4/48/GillSansEG.svg/320px-GillSansEG.svg.png)
Gill Sans is a humanist sans-serif typeface designed by Eric Gill and released by the British branch of Monotype from 1928 onwards.
![<span class="mw-page-title-main">Adrian Frutiger</span> Swiss typeface designer (1928–2015)](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/4/4e/Adrian_Frutiger_2002_by_Henk_Gianotten.jpg)
Adrian Johann Frutiger was a Swiss typeface designer who influenced the direction of type design in the second half of the 20th century. His career spanned the hot metal, phototypesetting and digital typesetting eras. Until his death, he lived in Bremgarten bei Bern.
![<span class="mw-page-title-main">Johnston (typeface)</span> Sans-serif typeface](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/4/4f/JohnstonSpecimenEN.svg/320px-JohnstonSpecimenEN.svg.png)
Johnston is a sans-serif typeface designed by and named after Edward Johnston. The typeface was commissioned in 1913 by Frank Pick, commercial manager of the Underground Electric Railways Company of London, as part of his plan to strengthen the company's corporate identity. Johnston was originally created for printing, but it rapidly became used for the enamel station signs of the Underground system as well.
![<span class="mw-page-title-main">Rustic capitals</span> Roman calligraphic script](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/1/15/RomanVirgilFolio014rVergilPortrait.jpg/320px-RomanVirgilFolio014rVergilPortrait.jpg)
Rustic capitals is an ancient Roman calligraphic script. Because the term is negatively connoted supposing an opposition to the more 'civilized' form of the Roman square capitals, Bernhard Bischoff prefers to call the script canonized capitals. The script was used for writing secular texts.
![<span class="mw-page-title-main">Vergilius Augusteus</span>](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/d/dd/VergiliusAugusteusFolio3InitialO.jpg/320px-VergiliusAugusteusFolio3InitialO.jpg)
The Vergilius Augusteus is a manuscript from late antiquity, containing the works of the Roman author Virgil, written probably around the 4th century. There are two other collections of Virgil manuscripts, the Vergilius Vaticanus and the Vergilius Romanus. They are early examples of illuminated manuscripts; the Augusteus is not illuminated but has decorated initial letters at the top of each page. These letters do not mark divisions of the text, but rather are used at the beginning of whatever line happened to fall at the top of the page. These decorated initials are the earliest surviving such initials.
![<span class="mw-page-title-main">Lettering</span> The art of drawing letters](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/e/e7/1960s_book_spine_lettering_%288622331028%29.jpg/320px-1960s_book_spine_lettering_%288622331028%29.jpg)
Lettering is an umbrella term that covers the art of drawing letters, instead of simply writing them. Lettering is considered an art form, where each letter in a phrase or quote acts as an illustration. Each letter is created with attention to detail and has a unique role within a composition. Lettering is created as an image, with letters that are meant to be used in a unique configuration. Lettering words do not always translate into alphabets that can later be used in a typeface, since they are created with a specific word in mind.
![<span class="mw-page-title-main">Roman type</span> Style of typeface](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/4/49/BemboMT.svg/320px-BemboMT.svg.png)
In Latin script typography, roman is one of the three main kinds of historical type, alongside blackletter and italic. Sometimes called normal, it is distinct from these two for its upright style and its simplicity.
![<span class="mw-page-title-main">Trajan (typeface)</span> Typeface](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/e/e4/Trajan_typeface_specimen.svg/320px-Trajan_typeface_specimen.svg.png)
Trajan is a serif typeface designed in 1989 by Carol Twombly for Adobe.
![<span class="mw-page-title-main">History of Western typography</span> Aspect of history](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/8/8b/Long_S-I_Garamond_sort_001.png/320px-Long_S-I_Garamond_sort_001.png)
Modern typographers view typography as a craft with a very long history tracing its origins back to the first punches and dies used to make seals and coinage currency in ancient times. The basic elements of typography are at least as old as civilization and the earliest writing systems—a series of key developments that were eventually drawn together into one systematic craft. While woodblock printing and movable type had precedents in East Asia, typography in the Western world developed after the invention of the printing press by Johannes Gutenberg in the mid-15th century. The initial spread of printing throughout Germany and Italy led to the enduring legacy and continued use of blackletter, roman, and italic types.
![<span class="mw-page-title-main">History of the Latin script</span> Evolution of the Roman alphabet](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/d/d3/Duenos_Inscription.jpg/320px-Duenos_Inscription.jpg)
The Latin script is the most widely used alphabetic writing system in the world. It is the standard script of the English language and is often referred to simply as "the alphabet" in English. It is a true alphabet which originated in the 7th century BC in Italy and has changed continually over the last 2,500 years. It has roots in the Semitic alphabet and its offshoot alphabets, the Phoenician, Greek, and Etruscan. The phonetic values of some letters changed, some letters were lost and gained, and several writing styles ("hands") developed. Two such styles, the minuscule and majuscule hands, were combined into one script with alternate forms for the lower and upper case letters. Modern uppercase letters differ only slightly from their classical counterparts, and there are few regional variants.
In typography, the Vox-ATypI classification makes it possible to classify typefaces into general classes. Devised by Maximilien Vox in 1954, it was adopted in 1962 by the Association Typographique Internationale (ATypI) and in 1967 as a British Standard, as British Standards Classification of Typefaces, which is a very basic interpretation and adaptation/modification of the earlier Vox-ATypI classification. On April 27, 2021, ATypI announced that they had de-adopted the system and that they were establishing a working group building towards a new, larger system incorporating the different scripts of the world.
![<span class="mw-page-title-main">Edward Catich</span> American Roman Catholic priest, teacher, and calligrapher (1906–1979)](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/3/3b/Edward_M._Catich%2C_RIT_NandE_1976_Oct11_Complete.jpg/320px-Edward_M._Catich%2C_RIT_NandE_1976_Oct11_Complete.jpg)
Edward M. Catich was an American Roman Catholic priest, teacher, and calligrapher. He is noted for the fullest development of the thesis that the inscribed Roman square capitals of the Augustan age and afterward owed their form wholly to the use of the flat brush, rather than to the exigencies of the chisel or other stone cutting tools.
![<span class="mw-page-title-main">Percy Delf Smith</span> English artist and engraver (1882–1948)](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/9/97/Percy_Delf_Smith_1928.jpg)
Percy John Delf Smith was a British artist who worked in engraving, painting, lettering, calligraphy and book design.
![<span class="mw-page-title-main">Roman lettering</span> Modern usage of Roman capitals](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/f/f5/Trajan_%282959610060%29.jpg/320px-Trajan_%282959610060%29.jpg)
Roman lettering or Trajan lettering refers to the use by artists and signwriters of Roman capitals in modern lettering, particularly in Britain.