Serif gothic fonts1/29/2024 The terminology of sans serif types can be confusing: essentially, gothic or grotesque are both generic names for sans serif (although Letter Gothic, confusingly, is more of a slab serif type). They are fine for a sentence, passable for a paragraph, but are difficult to use well in, say, the text of a book. The low contrast and absence of serifs makes most sans typefaces harder to follow for general reading. Learn more about this in the Wikipedia Sans serif letters have no serifs, as the name suggests. This gave way to referring to sans styles as “Grotesque” … ugly, incongruous, unpleasant, or disgusting! Yet, in the art world, grotesques are ornamental arrangements of arabesques with interlaced garlands and small and fantastic human and animal figures, usually set out in a symmetrical pattern around some form of architectural framework - more specifically, the grotesque forms on Gothic buildings. The introduction of the sans serif caused quite a stir in the typography and publishing worlds because of the dramatic departure from the Romans or serif fonts which dominated publishing. Although the earliest designs are not much used today, their descendants are common enough. The earliest forms of sans and slab typefaces tended to be heavy, often monolithic, display faces, but there quickly evolved a wide range of styles. The term “sans serif” (sometimes spelled as a single word, sansserif or sanserif, which is incorrect!) means without a serif. Both are marked by simpler letterforms with (usually) relatively uniform stroke weight, lacking significant contrast, often geometric in underlying design. These “ugly” type forms made their first appearances around 1815-1817. Continuing from the previous page, Part Four of “A Brief History of Typography” Why do they call Sans Serif fonts ‘Grotesque’ or ‘Gothic’ ? Find out and meet some of the founding fathers in this part five of the “Brief History of Typography” by Thomas Phinney.
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