most popular typefaces that aren sans serif

#MOST POPULAR TYPEFACES THAT AREN SANS SERIF PROFESSIONAL#

These are special fonts that should not be used for body text but may be appropriate in certain situations.Ĭursive fonts, like Comic Sans MS above, project a friendly feel but would be entirely out of place on a professional website and are generally disliked by designers. Two final families that you may see mentioned are Cursive and Fantasy. The text below is in bolded Courier New (which, incidentally, is also a slab-serif font):įonts are more commonly made proportional, where the width of each character and the space between them is set more appropriately - the letter i taking up much less space than an m, for example. This makes the characters more difficult to read at normal sizes, as the shapes of words are less scannable. In monospaced, or fixed-width fonts, all characters are the same width. There is also a wider distinction for fonts - whether they are monospaced or proportional. Pairing a sans-serif font like Verdana for headings with a serif font like Georgia for body text will often look very attractive. Below is an example of text set in Trebuchet MS: All of these fonts are clean and will usually work well even at small sizes. Well-known sans-serif fonts include Helvetica (known as Arial on Windows), Trebuchet MS, Lucida Grande, and the ever-popular Verdana. Sans-serif fonts are also well-suited to headings, as they are easily readable from a distance. Sans-serif fonts are the most appropriate family for use online, as their simpler letter-forms remain readable at low resolutions whereas serif fonts need more pixels to display their extra details. Sans-serif fonts do not have any serifs at all (“sans” being French for “without”). Slab-serif fonts present a happy marriage between the legibility of serif fonts and the friendly look of sans-serif fonts, though they may suffer at small sizes. The serifs in these fonts are solid straight lines. Slab-serif fonts are a subclass of serif fonts. They aren’t as suited for online text unless set larger than normal.Įxamples of serif fonts are Times New Roman, Georgia, Book Antiqua, Palatino and Garamond. Serif fonts are more suitable for usage in offline, high-resolution printed media like books and newspapers, where their extra definition makes them more readable. Notice the small finishing strokes on each character, particularly noticeable on the T and h: The following example is in Times New Roman (the same as Times on the Mac). A serif is a flick added to the tips of the lines that make up the letters.

Most broadsheet newspapers will be set in a serifed font, as they reflect quality. They are among the oldest type of fonts in existence, having been around since the year 1200. Serif fonts are the old-style, or traditional-looking fonts. Fonts in the same family will share common traits in their designs. All fonts fall into a distinct category of fonts, called families.

Most popular typefaces that aren sans serif