lbobi Typography 101: What sans serif means

In typography there are two main categories of typefaces, serif and sans serif. By the way you may be more familiar with calling them fonts rather than typefaces but strictly speaking that is wrong. A font is a particular style within a typeface. An example of this would be in the Times Roman typeface you have the bold font and the italic font. The whole family of Times Roman fonts would be called the Times Roman typeface.

Back to my explanation of serif and sans serif. A serif is the extra piece you see on typefaces like Times Roman, Palatino and Georgia. Serif typefaces have always been thought to be easier to read for body copy on the printed page.

The other common kind of typeface is the sans serif. This simply means without serif, (sans is french for without). Examples of this would be, Arial, Geneva and Avant Garde. Most often sans serif typefaces are used for short text like headlines and captions.

When you are deciding for your business which typeface to use, pick the one that matches the look and feel of your studio. There really is no right or wrong answer. EXCEPT if you use white text on a black background for large areas of type. This is a cardinal sin and there are secret typeface ninjas that will come for you. That being said, pick the typeface that best suits the look your are going for.

Here is a graphic to show you the basic difference between serif and sans serif.



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The Jeff font in the lbobi typeface.
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