This is something that puzzles me still to do this day. A lot of people use these two words, font and typface interchangeably, most likely to the point that Grammar Girl will have to comment on it soon. I was taught there is a difference and since have forgotten it, but perhaps if I write about it, the truth will stick eventually.
Typeface – A set of fonts in the same style. Or, in other words, a font family. Ex: Times New Roman, Helvetica, or Arial.
Font – A single kind of typeface. Ex: Times New Roman in 10 point size is a font, and Times New Roman in 14 point size is also a font. Times New Roman in Bold is also a font. (Basically designating a specific type inside of a typeface is a font.)
So that clears the air a bit. So, if you are looking at typography in a magazine, or during a presentation and happen to like it, you could ask “what font is that sentence set to?”, or if you think the whole page of differing point sizes is in the same family, “What typeface are you using for this presentation?”. It seems instead of using font and typeface interchangeably and being wrong, you might be able to use the phrase font-family and the word typeface interchangeably.
Brilliant!
great – very clear. i get it now (i think… mostly).
:)
You might also want to spell the word “sentence” correctly too ;)
I disagree–or don’t quite understand this particular expression. My view:
Font: the essential NAMED type design–Time New Roman, Palatino, Basilea, Aldine, etc.
Face: literally the FACE of any font, as revealed in the term boldFACE and the rarely used bookFACE (which is the standard version from which other faces are derived). FACE is, if you will, the ‘facial expression’, of a font. Italic, expanded, condensed and such are all FACES of the above-named FONTS.
What I’m getting at is that I don’t believe it correct to say a TYPEFACE is a ‘set of fonts’ or a ‘font family.’ The very term is singular. Or so I learned, or think I learned or seem to recall I learned rather too many decades ago when first standing before a California job case with a brass stick in my hand and trying to set type lefthanded.