Sans serif fonts lack the small ornaments at the top and bottom of letters, making them look plain and unadorned but crisp and clear on computer screens. They are preferred by web designers for legibility. Serif fonts have varying line widths and ornamental features, derived from calligraphy. Sans serif fonts tend to look modern and include families such as grotesques, humanist fonts, and geometric fonts. Examples include Helvetica, Verdana, and Futura. Sans serif fonts are used for advertising design, headlines, and the internet, while serif fonts are used in books, magazines, and newspapers for easier reading.
A sans serif font, also called a sans or gothic font, is a typeface that lacks serifs, the small ornaments at the bottom and top of letters. The font used on many websites is in this font, and you may find that it looks relatively plain and unadorned, and also that it displays crisp and clear on your computer screen. Many serif fonts balk when translated on screen, and as a result, web designers prefer to use fonts for legibility. The first half of the name comes from the French sans, meaning “without.”
A serif font has letters with varying line widths and ornamental features that make each letter highly distinctive. These fonts are derived from calligraphy and handwritten pieces and retain many of the characteristics that make calligraphy distinctive. In the early 19th century, typeface designers began toying with the idea of removing serif characters from their typefaces, but the idea didn’t gain popularity until the 1919s and 1920s, when sans typefaces serifs exploded into advertising and newspaper headlines. Both types of fonts are in widespread use around the world today, depending on personal preference and the application.
A sans serif typeface tends to look very modern, as modern advertising design was the first field in which these fonts were used extensively. There are actually a number of families of sans serif fonts, starting with grotesques and neo-grotesques, early Arial-like fonts that tend to look very plain and unadorned. The name derives from the slang popular among typographers, who called these characters “grotesque”. Next come humanist fonts, which have more variation in line width and personality. Modernist design also incorporates many geometric fonts, which rely on angular geometric shapes for their letters.
Some classic examples of sans serif fonts include Helvetica, Verdana, and Futura. The striking differences in appearance between these fonts show how divergent they are, just as serif fonts have. Some popular applications for them include advertising design, headlines, and the Internet, as a sans font is darker and more distinct, making it easy to see and recognize. Serif fonts are still used heavily in books, magazines, and newspapers because they’re somehow easier to read. Serifs help draw attention and hold attention to a line of text, while reading large blocks of sans serif text can be difficult.
Protect your devices with Threat Protection by NordVPN
