From the course: Font Management Essential Training

What is a font?

From the course: Font Management Essential Training

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What is a font?

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- [Mike] Before we get into the details of working with fonts and managing them in different applications and operating systems, we should start by going over the most basic and fundamental question of all in this topic, which is: What is a font? And also: What is the difference between a font and a typeface? It might sounds silly to make this distinction because a lot of folks use terms like font and typeface interchangeable, but the two words actually refer to different things, so it's worth spending a minute just to get them clear before moving on. In traditional typography, a font was a set of characters cast in metal or carved in wood that included letters, numbers, and various symbols. A font had a specific size, weight, and style. So 12-point Times semi-bold italic was a font. 12 points is the size, semi-bold is the weight, italic is the style. Nowadays, technology's changed and we have fonts and computer files instead of wood or metal. But the idea is the same. The file, which is the means of producing the type on screen or in print, is a font. So when we talk about managing fonts, we're talking about managing those files so they're organized and working properly, so you can use them well. A typeface, on the other hand, is the design of the characters. A collection of related fonts that share an overall look make up a typeface. It's also called a type family. Helvetica is a typeface comprised of many different individual fonts. You might even think of a typeface as a brand and a font as a specific product. There are many different categories of typefaces based on their appearance, some with subcategories and classifications. The main classifications being serif, sans serif, symbol or dingbat, script, and display. Another way to illustrate the difference between a font and a typeface is to go to the Character panel in any Adobe graphics application. In most cases, the top field is where you can choose a typeface, or family, and the field beneath it is where you can choose a font with a specific weight and style. Nowadays, with modern computer fonts that you can set at almost any size, the idea of a font having a specific point size doesn't apply anymore. But the idea of a font having a specific weight and style certainly do. Weights refer to the thickness of the character relative to their height. Weight can be described in words like light, medium or regular, semi-bold, bold, black, and so on. Some fonts use a numerical system of weights where we see weights like 45 light, 55 Roman, 65 bold, and so on. In terms of style, the variants include italic or oblique, compressed, condensed, extended, and so on. Now that we have a better understanding of what fonts are, we can begin to learn more about working with them and managing them. In the next few movies, we'll take a look at each of the different types of fonts that you can use on your computer.

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