

However, sans serif typefaces can also evoke today’s handwriting, which is missing the extra strokes that were a product of the brush or quill. That association still holds for example, Todd uses sans serif for a comic book set in a contemporary, cosmopolitan, and fashion-oriented Los Angeles. “When you're reading a 9.5 font in a printed book, serifs help you distinguish the letterforms and create flow as you’re reading.”

“Serifs often lend a bit more legibility at smaller scales,” says DeCotes. They also have real functional value as body copy. When working on book design for a story set during World War II, Todd used serif fonts to give readers the feeling they were in a world that existed prior to modern design conventions. “Serif fonts can have a more clinical and institutional look to them,” says Todd, who uses serif fonts to evoke earlier eras. “They feel a little bit more old-timey,” says designer Madeline DeCotes. Serif typefaces like Times New Roman are suggestive of typewriters’ old style - The New York Times and other reputable institutions that have existed for over a century still use this font. Serif fonts can look authoritative, professional, and suggest the weight of history or experience. Looking for a crash course? Study the basics of type with this guide to understanding and using fonts. This evolved into deliberately adding smaller strokes in more regular, artful ways, and those decorative strokes became an expected part of the letters. Their origins are a mystery one theory suggests they arose when scribes using brushes or quills left small marks with the writing implement as they finished each stroke. Serifs are the small lines attached to letters. It’s not easy to find the right font for a particular project, but one way to begin the process is to decide whether a serif or sans serif typeface is more appropriate.

Serif fonts word movie#
Type in advertisements can subtly indicate the kind of audience an ad is trying to reach, and type on book covers and movie posters can indicate genre. Type in a logo, for instance, can clue you into a company’s history and the attitude it’s trying to convey. Typefaces tell you a lot about what you’re viewing. “When you are designing with type, the typeface you choose tells a story.” “Typography is basically word art,” says designer Dylan Todd. The choice between serif or sans serif fonts.
