Difference between Typeface and Font

Other than the visual elements, text is the most important form to communicate with the users, sometimes, text is even more important than the visuals itself. Typefaces and fonts are two essential components of designing text, and sometimes very confusing as well. While Typefaces are distinct styles of writing for any text. Fonts are the different variations of size and weight that can be performed on a typeface. These two together make the most component of Typography and one must learn to differentiate between these to not just create better typography, but it also helps during setting Typographic Hierarchy.

In this article, we will discuss what Typeface and Font are? and what are the key differences between them.

Typeface vs Font

What are Typefaces?

Typefaces simply are the way of designing typography. Typefaces are distinct styles of writing for any text. It includes design for everything every set of characters – from letters, numbers, and punctuation marks, to symbols.

Typefaces define the visual appearance of character and hence the visual appearance of the entire typography. It is one of the most important parts of typography that sets the tone of the text.

There are two Typefaces you must know:

1. Serifs

Serifs are the oldest font styles whose characteristics are the small feet at the end of a stroke on the letter. Serifs help the reader follow the letter easily making them highly clear and readable. Serif fonts convey a very traditional vibe you can find these fonts being used in long-form copies for example, on books, magazines and newspapers.

Going back in history, characters used to be created by chiseling on stone, and the chisel created small feet at the end of each stroke. This is how Serifs were born.

Example: Times New Roman

There are multiple types of Serif font styles, most important ones are:

• Old Style Serifs
• Transitional Serifs
• Modern Serifs
• Slab Serifs
• Clarendon Serifs
• Glyphic Serifs
• Didone Serifs
• Tuscan or Western Serifs
• Contemporary or Transitional Serifs

2. Sans-Serifs

“Sans” in the word Sans-Serif in French basically means “without,” therefore, sans-serif typefaces are those that lack serifs. San-serifs fonts are simpler to look and are mostly used as body copy, display and headlines. Sans-Serifs fonts are considered as clean, minimal and modern looking. There us was first started in the 15th century.

Example: Helvetica

There are multiple types of San-Serif font styles, most important ones are:

• Grotesque Sans-Serif
• Neo-Grotesque Sans-Serif
• Humanist Sans-Serif
• Geometric Sans-Serif
• Transitional and Contemporary Sans-Serif
• Display and Decorative Sans-Serif
• Monospaced Sans-Serif

What are Fonts?

Fonts are the different variations of size and weight that can be performed on a typeface. This simply means that once you have chosen your typeface, you will need to decide whether the typeface should be medium or large, whether it should be light or bold – all these variations are called fonts of that particular typeface. Changing fonts depends on what typeface we are using, but in most of the cases we can change size, weight, letterform width and italics of a typeface.

Example: For Typeface Roboto we have these fonts –

• Roboto Thin
• Roboto Light
• Roboto Regular
• Roboto Medium
• Roboto Bold
• Roboto Black

Some typefaces even have more fonts, like Helvetica that comes with these many fonts –

• Helvetica Neue 25 Ultra Light
• Helvetica Neue 35 Thin
• Helvetica Neue 45 Light
• Helvetica Neue 55 Roman
• Helvetica Neue 65 Medium
• Helvetica Neue 75 Bold
• Helvetica Neue 85 Heavy
• Helvetica Neue 95 Black

Differences between Typefaces and Fonts

The differences between Typefaces and Fonts can we understood in following points:

Typefaces	Fonts
Typefaces are distinct styles of writing for any text.	Fonts are the different variations of size and weight that can be performed on a typeface.
Typefaces deals with the way of writing any letter, character or symbol.	Font deals with style, weight or size of that typeface.
It includes design for everything every set of characters – from letters, numbers, and punctuation marks, to symbols.	It includes Size, Weight, Letterform width and Italics.
Typefaces are of two types – Serifs and Sans-Serifs	Fonts may be of multiple types depending on which Typeface we are using.
Deciding the Typeface is the first step and then fonts are decided	Fonts are decided after typefaces.
Examples: Roboto, Helvetica etc.	Examples: Roboto Thin, Roboto Light, Helvetica Neue 25 Ultra Light, Helvetica Neue 35 Thin etc.

Conclusion

Typography plays essential role in communicating with the users. In this article we discussed about Differences between Typeface and Font which is something one must know to design a better typography. On one hand we had typefaces which are distinct styles of writing any font. And on the other hand we had Fonts, which are the different variations of size and weight that can be performed on a typeface.

We hope that this article helped you improve your understanding of Typeface and Font and you got to learn something new from the article.