[OpenFontLibrary] Site terminology: Fonts/Typefaces

[Ben Weiner]

Hi,

Liam R E Quin wrote:
> On Tue, 2009-05-12 at 23:27 +0100, Ben Weiner wrote:
> [...]
>   
>> 'Typeface' refers to all the members of a visually related font family,
>>     
> This is usually called "typeface family"... where a typeace is a design
> and a font is an implementation of that design, whether in metal, wood,
> stone, or software...
>
>   
>> Typically the members of the family (each of which would traditionally 
>> have been called a 'fount' or 'font') are regular/Roman, bold, italic, 
>> etc.
>>     
>
> Do you have a reference here for such usage?  Benton at ATF invented the
> term "family" to describe roman + italic + bold (and, later, bold
> italic) but a fount was always a single typeface in metal as I had
> understood the literature, e.g. Updike, Tracy, etc.
>   
I think we're agreeing here. I can say without a specific reference 
that's how 'typeface' is often used in the industry. It saves saying the 
word 'family'. And if there is only one member of the family, it 
generally doesn't get called a family anyhow ;-)

'Fount' is indeed a single typeface in metal.

My favourite reference for technical stuff about founts, type and design 
at the moment is probably /Printers' type in the twentieth century/ by 
Richard Southall. Not really one for the casual reader though :-)
>>  Font files can now 
>> contain any number of typeface family members, so perhaps these 
>> multi-member files should be called 'typeface files' instead.
>>     
> Please don't do that -- US and UK law explicitly uses the terms
> "typeface" and "font" as I have described, from my non-lawyer reading;
> calling fonts typeface files might weaken their protection.
>   
OK. Wasn't a serious suggestion really ;-)

Cheers,
Ben

-- 
Ben Weiner | http://readingtype.org.uk/about/contact.html