helvetica lovin'

font classifications:

old style - old style typefaces contain a great contrast between thick and thin strokes, and more refined. serifs in old style have more wedge shaped ascenders. the letters do not have much stress and are generally upright. old style is sturdy without being heavy and based on handwriting. some examples are: goudy old style, janson, palatino, and perpetua

transitional - transitional typefaces have sharper serifs and high contrast as well. they are between modern and old style (hence the name) and include times and baskerville.

modern - modern typefaces have thin, straight serifs, vertical axis, and an extreme contrast from thick to thin strokes. the serifs are thing and the vertical lines are heavy. bodoni and didot are examples. modern fonts are generally less legible than the others.

slab serif - slab serif typefaces are heavy, bold, and decorative. these typefaces are mono weight were born in the 19th century for advertisement use. examples are: courier and rockwell

sans serif - sans serif typefaces can be classified into grotesque, neo-grotesque, humanist, and geometric. the characters have no serifs. they are generally used for on-screen readability. some examples are: helvetica, franklin gothic, ms sans serif, lucida grande, myriad, trebuchet, tahoma, verdana, futura, and century gothic.

now....

helvetica is a sans serif... neo-grotesque

max miedinger is credited for the typeface.

it was created in 1957 (older than my momma)

BUT - it was revamped in 1983 by D. Stempel AG and this new and improved font is named helvetica neue.

helvetica would definitely be a huge greek family if it were human... it contains regular, fractions, light, light oblique, oblique, black, bold, fractions bold, black oblique, bold oblique, compressed, condensed light, condensed medium, condensed light oblique, condensed oblique, condensed black, condensed bold, extra compressed, ultra compressed, condensed black oblique, condensed bold oblique, not to mention the whole helvetica neue fam.

all letterforms sit (or slightly swoop below) the baseline

the height from baseline to the top of the letterform is the cap height

x-height is the height of the lowercase x of a typeface

serif style includes serifs in the typeface

the weight of the character is called the stroke weight

the apex is the highest point of a letterform, like the uppercase A

vertex is the bottom of the character where the lines form a point, (v, w)

final/terminal is the bottom curve or tail on the lowercase a, but generally seen in lowercase d or b as well

barb is the part that gets cut on the top of a C

on a G, a spur connects the bowl and the serif

an ear is the part that hangs off a lowercase g (serif)

a loop is the lower part of a lowercase g

a link connects a bowl and loop in a lowercase g

1/2 story indicates a lowercase a or g <>

a capital Q has a tail

capital R's and K's have legs

-J.