Serif
  • It is a small decorative line attached to the end of a stroke in a letter (or) symbol.
  • Serif have been credited with increasing readability and  reading speed of long passages of text.
  • These are used for lengthy text, such as books, news papers, and most magazines.
  • Examples, Times New Roman, Georgia, Baskerville.

  • Serif fonts can be broadly divided into four groups:
     1. Old style
     2. Transitional
     3. Didone
     4. slab serif 

    1. Old style:
  • These are based on hand lettering of scribes and first appeared in late 15th century.
  • Their relation can be seen in the curved strokes and letters with thick to thin transitions.
  • These are always angled and if you draw a line through the thinnest parts of letters, we will see the stress in diagonal.
  • During this period, italic letters are evolved.
    2. Transition:
  • It was appeared in mid 18th century.
  • This represents the transition between old style and didone.
  • The axis of curve strokes can be inclined in transitional designs, the strokes normally have a vertically stress.
              
     3. Didone:
  • It was appeared in late 18th century.
  • Contrast between thick and thin strokes is abrupt.
  • These have a vertical stress and with no bracketing.
  • In many cases, stroke terminals are "ball" shapes rather than an evocation of broad pen effect.
  • These are less considered to readable than trans (or) old style.    
    4. Slab serif:
  • Slab became popular in 19th century using for advertising display.
  • These have very heavy serifs with minimal bracketing.
  • Changes in stroke weight are imperceptible.
  • To many readers, slab serif type styles look like San serif designs with a simple addition of heavy serifs.
 San Serif
  • It is one letter form that does not have extending features called "serif" at the end of strokes.
  • It tends to have less line width variation than serif fonts.
  • These are often used for headings rather than body texts, reports, brochers.
  • For other shorter text, such as captions,column headings San Sarif can be used. 
  • Example: Helvetica, Arial, Verdana.
  • San Sarif is classified into 4 types:
     1. Grotesque 
     2. Square
     3. Geometric
     4. Humanistic
     
     1. Grotesque:
  • Grotesque is the first commercial popular type of San Sarif.
  • There is a slight "squared" quality to many of the curves and the lower case 'g' is common to the Roman type.
  • These were often quite solid, bold designs suitable for headings and advertisements.
     2. Square:
  • These designs are based on grotesque character traits and proportions.
  • It have a dramatic square of normally curved strokes.
  • Usually they have more latitude in character spacing than other San Sarif types.
     3. Geometric:
  • These are based on geometric shapes like near-perfect circles and squares.
  • Commonly features are a nearly-exactly circular capital 'o'.
  • Among these four categories, geometric fonts tend to the least useful for body text and often used to headings.
     4. Humanistic:
  • It takes inspiration from traditional letters forms, such as Roman square capitals and traditional serif fonts.
  • These have stroke modulation (or) alternating thick and thin strokes.
  • Humanistic designs can be given wide separation between strokes which is not a feature on grotesque.
  • Most legible and most easily read of the sans serif typefaces.