To be sure, they’re not the same thing. People often use the two terms interchangeably, unaware of their difference. While the difference between the two won’t matter to most people, it is important that designers be able to discern between them. It’s kind of like calling a squirrel and chipmunk the same animal. While technically different, they’re similar in relation.

What is a typeface?

A typeface is the actual design of the characters of the alphabet; the style of that particular set of letters, numbers, and other characters. Times New Roman refers to a specific style – it’s a typeface.

What is a font?

A font is a single style and size of an assortment of alpha-numeric characters and punctuation. Think of a font is being the file on your computer that contains the information for that single style and size; it tells your computer and printer how to displace a typeface. Times New Roman 12 point bold refers to a font.

Adobe’s Definition

The definition of a font according to Adobe: “A font is one weight, width, and style of a typeface.”

Now You Know

I leave you with this humorous Periodic Table of Typefaces from geekologie.com

Tags: denver graphic design firm, fonts, typefaces, Typography  |  Posted under Design, Typography  |    No Comments