Typeface vs. Font: Terminology Smackdown

Here's a pretty good explanation from The Complete Manual of Typography, by James Felici:

"No two words in typography are as commonly misused as font and typeface. A typeface is a collection of characters—letters, numbers, symbols, punctuation marks, etc.—that are designed to work together like the parts of a coordinated outfit. A typeface is an alphabet with a certain design. A font, in contrast, is a physical thing, the description of a typeface—in computer code, photographic film, or metal—used to image the type. The font is the cookie cutter, and the typeface is the cookie (see Figure 3 1).† When you look at a page of type, you can say, “What typeface is that? ” or “What font was used to set that? ” But you can’t say, “What font is that? ” because you’re not looking at a font; you’re looking at the product of a font. The confusion between the terms arises largely from the ambiguous use of the term font in computer programs, most of which have a Font menu. Although that menu lists what fonts are available for use by the program, it could just as easily be called the Typeface menu, as it also lists the typefaces available for your pages. In fact, since some fonts contain data for more than one typeface, it would be more accurate to call it the Typeface menu."

† Figure 3.1 shows an example font (the computer code) and its corresponding typeface.

The article seems to get it wrong. It claims, for example, that Garamond 3, Adobe Garamond, and ITC Garamond are "all the same typeface, but each is a different font." They are actually different typefaces, each based on Garamond's (or Jannon's) earlier designs. The key is that they are different designs. That's why they have different names and also why nobody who specified Garamond 3 for a project would be happy to have some misguided printer swap it out for Adobe Garamond under the impression that they were "the same typeface."

>Wikipedia even says they’re synonymous. I disagree.

This raises my level of scrutiny.

>Even if you might ask someone about a favorite CD, Rolling Stone wouldn’t. They would call those albums.

When CDs were the dominant music medium, this difference was anachronistically pedantic. With the analogy of technology sanding down a previously meaningful difference in mind, re-reading this line was telling:

>In traditional print, the distinction is easy: a font was a typeface set at a certain size, weight and style and cast in metal...In its digital form, fonts are more flexible and the moment when a typeface becomes a font is way more nuanced.

∴ In traditional print typeface != font. But today, the difference is so nuanced, the point of delineation so subjective, that the gradient, while interesting to talk about, can be safely ignored.

While I appreciate the desire for fastidiousness, I don't entirely agree with Mr. Ingebretsen.

I prefer Jon Tan's perspective: http://v1.jontangerine.com/log/2008/08/typeface--font

A typeface is a family of fonts (very often by the same designer). Within a typeface there will be fonts of varying weights or other variations. E.g., light, bold, semi-bold, condensed, italic, etc. Each such variation is a different font. The only evolution in terminology that results from the transition from metal-cast to digital fonts is that (point) size is no longer fixed.

The Garamond fonts he lists are not members of a "Garamond" typeface. Rather, those fonts are each members of their own respective typefaces which happen to be different interpretations of a theme.

How are those examples the same typeface, as the author claims? The details in the shapes of the glyphs are strikingly different. Wouldn't it be more correct to say they are distinct typefaces of a particular family (Garamond)?

I understand that argument that the author is making, however why does that make what Microsoft tweeted incorrect? Why is it incorrect of them to ask people what their favourite font is? Perhaps they intended for the people to respond to the question with a font choice, not typeface...

This reminds me of the conflation of tag and element in discussions about HTML/XML markup.

There's a meaningful difference. but you still end up dealing with Web frameworks that have a method for script_tag that inserts an element that has two tags. And when developers start talking about doing something with tags you have to mentally parse or just ask if they really mean tags or elements.

http://www.456bereastreet.com/archive/200508/html_tags_vs_el...

This would be a good example for that 4chan list. [Mundane x] vs [Mundane Y], Let me tell you how little you know (and I didn't know either until yesterday)

The matter gets even muddier when you start thinking of different weights, sizes and styles (eg italics). Are 12pt and 14pt Helveticas different fonts?

shitty analogy for developers:

    Typeface : a standard.
    Font : an implementation.

This is a nice, fat, red flag for human interaction.

If you find someone mentioning distinctions of this sort, you can be reasonably sure you're dealing with a pedant who enjoys 'educating' or correcting more than producing or doing.