With the world wide spread of free fonts, font bundles, and the way computers deal with typography, “font” is the commonly used word when talking about a specific kind of type. The word “typeface” is not used as much as the word “font” but can sometimes be interchanged but the truth of the matter is that one is not the same as the other. They are rather family of each other.

Going back in time

The meaning of the word “typeface” can be taken at literal value when we talk about how things were printed before the age of computers. A typeface was the actual metal bit with a letter cut into it at a specific size and weight. These metal bits were arranged in the printing press to create the text of what was to be printed.

If you were to go into an antique foundry you would find the typefaces organized in wooden drawers and trays holding the collections of metal bits according to size and weight. For example, for the Helvetica typeface; there would be a large section of the foundry storage where the Helvetica typeface would be kept. Helvetica 14 would have its own drawer, one section of capital letters another section for lowercase and another for italics and bold. This collection was called a font. The Helvetica typeface has many fonts inside its collection.

“Typefaces are what you see and Fonts are what you use”

– Norberto Florendo via The Font Feed

How does it apply to our digital life?

Now that printing isn’t done with metal cuts and drawers full of fonts, all typography is handled digitally. So how does the difference between typeface and font become apparent? When you download a font from a font database, like Helvetica, you download can all the sizes and weights as an .otf file but you still call it a font. In more definite terms, what you downloaded was a typeface, but we have become accustomed to just calling it a font, and that’s OK! We use it so commonly now that it isn’t exactly wrong.

The distinction of typeface and font becomes far more apparent when designers create new typography to sell online. A designer might create a hand lettered font with only one weight but scalable pixel size, the same designers might design a typeface that includes 6 weights and thicknesses, italics, bolds, slanted, outlined, shaded, etc. This would be a full collection and the designer will sell it as a typeface. This is why sometimes when you want to buy a font, one will cost 10$ because it has one weight and is only pixel size scalable, while an entire typeface could cost up to 100 or 200 dollars.

Some fonts don’t have a typeface, they just come on their own, as is. These are the “one hit wonders” of the typography world.

Meet Helvetica, the Champion of Typefaces

Of all the typefaces out there, Helvetica is one of the most common, most used and most versatile. There is one more thing about Typeface that I need to mention; when a typeface has so many variations like Helvetica does, it is then called a Typeface Family. There are over 30 different Typefaces in the Helvetica Family! That’s not all, Helvetica has a “cousin” family called Neue Helvetica with over 70 Typefaces.

When you are looking for a font to use in your timeless designs or even big blocks of copy, look first at Helvetica, you might be surprised at how with just one Typeface or a combination of fonts from the same Family, you can create a great typography combination that will stand the test of time.

A note on assigning gender to typography

When designing, you have to think of your client’s customer. Choosing the right kind of font for the design is key to transmitting the right message. I have mentioned this before about novelty fonts but it also applies when we talk about gender.

A company that designs little girls’ ballet tutus would probably need a very feminine font and inversely a Trucking company would probably need a strong masculine font. Yes, it does seem to fall into some sense of gender stereotyping but you really need to consider the client and how to best grab their attention.

The Helvetica Typeface Family you could say, is gender fluid. There are some masculine Helvetica typefaces like Helvetica Black and some feminine versions like Light Condensed. Another great reason to consider using a Helvetica font as one of the basic tools in your design process.