Talk:Typeface

More clarity of wording needed

“Historically, fonts came in specific sizes determining the size of characters, and in quantities of sorts '''or''' number of each letter provided”

I find confusing the "or" conjunction because it make a mess of the whole sense behind the sentence. As I understand it font historically was referred to with regard to the size of the characters of a given alphabet. I stumble over "in quantities of sorts or...". Please, re-phrase this, because "in quantities of sorts with number of each letter provided" (as I see fit for my thinking to figure out what's been attempted to convey) would be more unequivocal or if it's not the case then make the wording more streamlined. Overall, the article is an example of bad writing typical for Wikipedia. It fails to follows its own conventions that it struggles hard to establish throughout its length, it contradicts even comments made by some contributors above. For ex., the user Andrew 11 year ago gave rather vague definition of the typeface as a synonymous to the font family that refers to "variations withing the face". It implies that the typeface is a large superset of types following the general design pattern while the font family is a subset of the former comprising of typeface'es types with such similar properties as weight, slant, condensation and, finally, the font as a type, i.e. the instance of the font family, characterized by the size or whatever unspecified (the size as a defining attribute of the font came deductively). Yet in the course of the article we come across the statement that

A font family is typically a group of related fonts which vary only in weight, orientation, width, etc., but not design. For example, Times is a font family, whereas Times Roman, Times Italic and Times Bold are individual fonts making up the Times family

So now Roman, Italic are not features of the font family but rather fonts themselves? No wonder wiki people have the fame of the least socially skillful persons. Their lack of proper communication in writing results in their wish to cram everything that's available to them into a single piece which becomes unbearably frustrating for a reader to follow. This is really bad.

-78.62.13.245 (talk) 14:23, 27 July 2018 (UTC)

It has only taken nearly five years but I believe I have responded to this valid criticism. The revised text now reads

• Historically, a font came from a type foundry as a set of "sorts", with number of copies of each character included.

On your second point, the text is indeed accurate but it is likely to confuse readers brought up in the DTP world rather than the typesetting world. So I have added a sentence that I hope will help:

• In the loose terminology of desktop publishing, these distinctions are often lost and the term "font" used for an entire typeface rather than any one specific font within it.

Further comments welcome. --𝕁𝕄𝔽 (talk) 14:31, 8 April 2023 (UTC)

Proposed merge from Font (2nd)

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section. A summary of the conclusions reached follows.

To not merge given that these are sufficiently distinct topics and the combined article would be too long' uncontested argument with stale discussion. Klbrain (talk) 03:25, 13 September 2022 (UTC)

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I believe John Maynard Friedman is proposing that Font be merged into this article (from the discussion at Talk:Typography#Merge_from_Type_design). This would facilitate the merging of type design into the resulting article, because it currently overlaps with both Typeface and Font. The resulting article would obviously retain the explanation of the difference between typeface and font, but there is a lot of overlap. For example, Font#Other style attributes and Font#Serifs describe characteristics that are defined by the typeface and inherited by all the fonts of that typeface. It's unclear whether Font#Character variants is more related to typeface or font. Typeface#Font_metrics and Font#Metrics describe the same thing, though this could probably be moved to Typeface anatomy. Typeface#Typesetting_numbers and Font#Digits cover the same material. These problems haven't been resolved since the last merge discussion, and I'll note we now have a well-developed computer font that covers the digital-only aspects. If the articles were to remain separate, we would need a clean dividing line to help figure out which article these sections belong in. Moving them all to Typeface would leave relatively little in the Font article. Anything that could be said to be a thing that distinguishes fonts from each other can be said to be an aspect of internal variation within a typeface, and all notable attributes of a typeface are inherited by all of its fonts. -- Beland (talk) 22:40, 25 June 2021 (UTC)

Yes, that is the grand plan but, as I said, I don't expect to be able to give it the time and concentration it needs in the next two or three months. (That, of course, doesn't stop someone else taking the lead!) The more I've looked at it, the more complex it gets. I think at this stage that we should have a top-level article – Typeface of course – that absorbs the Font article, Computer Font would be a daughter article: as Beland says, it is well-developed and self-sufficient. I think that Type Design would be better merged with Typeface Anatomy: the question is whether the result should also be merged into the general Typeface article or does it really have enough 'meat' to standalone as a self-sufficient daughter article? Probably not but my concern is lest we turn Typeface into a WP:TLDR.

Which seems as good an opportunity as any to invite advice and comment from interested editors on what should be the best way forward. --John Maynard Friedman (talk) 15:32, 26 June 2021 (UTC)

I agree that we need to be cautious about merging too much into Typeface or it will become a ginormous wall of text that will be difficult for people to read. The main point to me is that right now we have several pages with overlapping content that is confusing. I'm fine with multiple pages if there is clear delineation of what goes on which page. - Dyork (talk) 01:43, 27 June 2021 (UTC)

Oppose. 1. Though the two are related they are distinct concepts. 2. The current typeface and font pages are already very long. 3. Other encyclopedia (such as Encyclopedia Britannica) have separate entries for them.

For overlapping content, people can discuss about what should be put where. We can also write a short summary in a section and put a link to a main article, like many of the other wiki pages do. Betty (talk) 05:58, 6 September 2021 (UTC)

Just FYI, I don't intend to lead on this proposal. I spent a lot of time recently (on an unrelated topic) rationalising a set of three overlapping articles down to two [with unanimous consensus though participation was low], only to find that the redundant third was reawakened [without consensus] as "a summary article". Here again we have three articles when two will do but I'm afraid I don't care enough for the interminable debate needed, especially if it can simply be ignored anyway. --John Maynard Friedman (talk) 09:13, 6 September 2021 (UTC)

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Ethnic typeface

I'm not sure this term is justified. It's apparently grabbed from the first cited source, which puts it in "coinage quotes" as it's being used, making me think this isn't a universal term...multiple of the sources in the section use the "faux" adjective on these, which I think would be a more WP:NPOV, and general way to describe these, as not all of the examples listed invoke any sort of ethnic group. Thoughts? 35.139.154.158 (talk) 13:49, 8 April 2023 (UTC)

No, it isn't justified, for the reasons you have explained. I have changed it to "Mimicry typefaces", which is more accurate and uncondescending. "Faux typeface" doesn't seem as obviously useful to me: literally it means "false typeface" or "fake typeface", which are not really very helpful terms. They could mean anything. Good call, thank you. --𝕁𝕄𝔽 (talk) 14:06, 8 April 2023 (UTC)

Typeface family

Typeface family redirects to this article, but there is no matching content. I was about to tag {subst:anchor|Typeface family} to Typeface#Style of typefaces, but that is too high a level. Does anybody fancy writing a short section on it? 𝕁𝕄𝔽 (talk) 15:00, 13 February 2024 (UTC)

Found some sources

• Haley, Allan. "About Typeface Families". fonts.com. In the late 1700s, foundries began to release fonts in families – pairing roman and italic designs that matched each other in style. Later the concept of typeface weights and proportions was added to the typeface family mix. In the 20th century, type families were enlarged even further with the introduction of different designs such as condensed, expanded and outlined..
• "Typeface family". PC Mag. A group of typefaces that includes the normal, bold, italic and bold-italic variations of the same design. which is too simplistic but it might be the first sentence?
• Lato (Google fonts) has thin, light, regular, bold and black plus italic variants of all.
• The Inter typeface family: "Inter is a workhorse of a typeface carefully crafted & designed for a wide range of applications, from detailed user interfaces to marketing & signage. The Inter typeface family features over 2000 glyphs covering 147 languages. Weights ranges from a delicate thin 100 all the way up to a heavy 900. Each glyph has three dedicated designs for weights 100, 400 and 900 to ensure excellent :quality at any weight. Optical size ranges from "text" to "display" and there is a true italic variant."
• D&AD Awards 2023: DS737 Shortlist / Type Design & Lettering / Typeface Family / 2023 "DS737 is a type family based on the official Danish signage typeface, originally released in 1954 by Dansk Standard as Danish Standard no. 737. The designer behind the typeface is unknown, but it is seen everywhere in Denmark. For a typeface that’s used in virtually every street in the country, it’s remarkable how much of a mystery it remains. In the past, DS737 only existed in one cut – now it has been digitised and expanded into a fully fledged, highly functional family consisting of 54 styles in total." This is a good one IMO because it recognises three broad categories in the family: Condensed, Normal, Expanded and in each there is thin, extralight, regular, medium, demibold, extrabold, Black plus italic version of all of the above.

I'll draft something within the next few days. --𝕁𝕄𝔽 (talk) 22:35, 14 February 2024 (UTC)

I have done a short first cut. Please improve. --𝕁𝕄𝔽 (talk) 20:47, 19 February 2024 (UTC)