[Anselm Sans Font Family
Magali Swinderman
For some reason, it remains difficult to hunt down font families that have a serif and sans-serif combo. As far as I have found, none of the font sites allow you to search by this designation, yet it seems quite useful to utilize the hard work of typographers who, with great attention, have designed sets that work in this capacity. I'm not a huge student of typography, but I do understand that there's some grumbling about the use of these pairings, that using them produces less-than-ideal results or reflects a bit of laziness. I get it, and agree that some of the best combos are hand picked, but this post isn't about that. There are plenty of other font pairings that don't share a family, that work together because they contrast nicely, but again maybe a different post. This post is simply put together to identify what is available in the event that you're needing a quick sans/sans-serif harmonious combo or you're looking for wider variations within a single family style.
There isn't a clearly standardized name for serif/sans-serif paired families, but from what I can find, superfamily is the term most commonly used. You may also find references that use the terms suite, hyperfamily, type system, or family group. Following is a list compiled from other posts that I found and personal font searches. Please share superfamilies that you know of that didn't make the list, and I'll be glad to add them.
In the Eighties, Karl Berry proposed a font naming scheme for TeX/LaTeX that ensured, as much as possible, that metric file names consisted of at most eight characters, which was a constraint forced basically by an operating system I don't want to mention; the same constraint was forced for file names on CD-ROM.
(the square brackets represent optional parts), where S is one letter denoting the supplier (p is Adobe, b is Bitstream, u is URW, and so on). What you're interested in is TT, two alphanumeric characters representing the family name.
This is the past, however. Nowadays operating systems have lifted the eight character restriction on file names (at least at user level). Suppliers of LaTeX fonts have started using freely file names and no convention is followed.
For instance, the Quattrocento font uses Quattrocento-TLF as family name, while Iwona uses iwona and Linux Libertine has LinuxLibertineT-xxx (xxx stands for a two or three letter addition. The newpxtext package uses family names such as ntxr or ntxss.
which should find all .fd files relative to the T1 encoding finds 286 files; another 59 are found with /T1 (not all packages follow the recommendation that font description file names start with the encoding in lower case).
lmss isn't in there (as the document is too old) but it explains the basic idea behind the cryptic names. Of course the reason for the cryptic names (MSDOS and other similar 8+3 file systems) doesn't really exist any-more, but still hard to change now.
TL;DR: Categorizing type is hard and only helpful to a certain degree. Sans-serif, serif and slab serif typeface can work for all sorts of text. Sans is perceived more modern, serif more traditional, slab serif can be both. Script, handwritten and display fonts mostly work for short and large applications, and are more striking and thematic. Eventually you have to find your own typographic vocabulary.
Knowing what broad categories of typefaces exist and what feelings they evoke, can be a handy tool to dig through the tons of available fonts out there. To make this as related to practice as possible, I oriented on a very rough classification that popular font catalogs use as well. With some adoptions MyFonts, Adobe Fonts, or Google Fonts divide their fonts in the following categories (click on them, to jump to the section directly):
This categorization is an orientation point. Lines get blurry very soon. While the first three (sans-serif, serif, and slab serif) are pretty straight forward, easier to distinguish, and might be suitable for all kinds of text, the latter three (script, handwritten, and display fonts) get fuzzy and should only be applied for display text.
Find your own language, and take the attributes I connect with these categories with a grain of salt. Typefaces all have their own appeal in a given situation, and you will have to decide if it truly fits the project and circumstances, or not.
Serif fonts have these tiny decorative tails or taper and are used in print since the 15th century. This background makes them appear more institutional, gives them a certain weight of history or even authority.
Notice that serifs are not only decorative, they also give letters with more distinctness which is beneficial for readability, especially in body text. In app or web design they are not that common for functional text and in smaller sizes they could be too dense or noisy for our visual conventions.
These typefaces can have thick, sometimes exaggerated, block-like serifs. They came up in the 19th century when they were most popular. This is also the reason why the might be associated with the wild west, especially in display sizes with very striking or even decorated serifs.
When script fonts were about skillfulness and the craft of writing, handwritten fonts are about creating the illusion of being handwritten by anyone. They should seem approachable and relatable, not necessarily fancy, artistic, or written by a penman.
The categories and associations I listed were examples, aimed to give you a broad overview and guide you towards defining your own vocabulary. How it appears eventually depends on your project, circumstances, culture and of course the specific font you choose. You are the typographer, you decide what fits best.
Hello, I would like to thank you for this amazing information. I was really confused about the script font that I wanted to choose for a branding project. Your article really helped me to find the right one. It was like puzzle pieces set together.
Pimp my Type is a project by me, Oliver Schndorfer, a freelance designer and speaker from Austria, deeply in love with everything type. Hire me for outstanding UI & app design. If you think my content and enthusiastic style fits your podcast or event, drop me a line!
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