Typography and Fontography

Typography and fontgraphy are both about the design and use of text, but the focus is different.

Typography is the art and technique of arranging type to make it legible, readable, and visually appealing. That includes the selection of typefaces (fonts), point sizes, line lengths, line spacing, and letter spacing. Overall it is the way letters are spread out or nestle against one another to create and effect.

Fontography is a less common and more specialised term. It describes how the typefaces (fonts) themselves are designed and created. Fontographers create custom fonts and design font families.

In short, typography is the art of using fonts, and fontography is the creation of the fonts themselves. Without font creators to create fonts (fontography) there would be no fonts to arrange (typography).

Typefaces and Fonts

The words typeface and font are often used as though they mean the same thing, but they have distinct meanings.

A typeface describes the aesthetic design of a set of letters, numbers, and symbols, that share a consistent visual style. They have names and some of them are very commonly known, such as Arial or Helvetica.

A font is a specific subset of a typeface. There are many fonts for every typeface, because there are many sizes, weights and styles. That is, a font describes a typeface that has a specific size, weight, and style. So for example ‘Helvetica 12pt bold italic’ is a font. It has a size (12pt), a weight (bold) and a form (italic). Those specific parameters are one of the many possible variations of the typeface Helvetica. Another Helvetica font is ‘Helvetica 10pt normal’. Yet another is ‘Helvetica 72pt bold’ – and so on.