Understanding Font Families: 5 Types of Font Families

A font family is a collection of fonts that share particular design features within a specific style of typeface. Typeface refers to a complete set of characters that are unified by a common design ethos. Fonts are actually subsections of typefaces that refer to the size, weight, and style of the specific typeface you’re using. A font's characters or glyphs will maintain a consistent style to match its font family.

Font families fall into two general categories which are generic font families, and specific font families. Here is a little more information about both.

• Generic font families: Generic font families are determined by font family properties such as serifs—which are decorative strokes on the ends of letters—or cursive strokes. The generic font family name will specify the attribute that all fonts within that family share, like serif, sans-serif, or monospace.
• Specific font families: Specific font families are specific fonts with different styles within the one font family name, such as Arial, Times New Roman, and Tahoma.

Here is an overview of the generic font families found in many word processing programs:

1. 1. Serif: Serif fonts are traditional typefaces using characters that have serifs which are small winged or flared tips extending off the tips of a letter. Serif fonts are typically used in printed books, newspapers, and magazines. Some popular serif fonts include Times New Roman, Garamond, Palatino, and Georgia.
2. 2. Sans-Serif: Sans-serif fonts use characters without serifs and are more commonly seen in digital formats. A sans-serif font will typically be the default font in digital word processing programs. Sans-serif fonts include Arial, Helvetica, Verdana, Trebuchet MS, and Gill Sans.
3. 3. Cursive: Cursive fonts use characters that have connective strokes which give the font a handwritten appearance. Cursive fonts include Comic Sans MS, Adobe Poetica, Sanvito, and Zapf-Chancery.
4. 4. Fantasy: Fantasy fonts are stylized fonts that still maintain the characteristics of non-cursive, traditional alphabet glyphs. Examples include Cottonwood, Critter, and Alpha Geometrique.
5. 5. Monospace: Fonts in the monospace font family have characters that are all the same width, giving text the appearance of a manual monospaced typewriter. Examples of monospaced fonts include Courier New, Monaco, Lucida Console, Consolas, and Everson Mono.

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