Each classes shall have an OBJECTIVELY DISTINCTIVE CONTENT, and so, each class must be precisely defined by a simple defining phrase. As a matter of consequency, a class is valid if only no type can fit into another one (of the same level).

Classes on the SAME LEVEL shall be of the SAME KIND. A fair example of such a mistake is, in our opinion, to create a Black letter category at the same level than Serifs or Scripts : A black letter is either a sub-category of scripts (a type that emulates writing) or of serifs (they do have some), but certainly not a class of the same level...
Another example, to show this on a broader point of view : when Amazon.com proposes, in its musical categories, to choose between "Classical music" and "Popular music", they are clearly wrong and intellectually misleading : Classical music can be popular and Popular music can be of the classical genre (André Rieux is a sad but clear example of that !)

A new category shall represents a CONCEPTUAL QUANTUM LEAP, not just a new variation or a transformation of what existed before. This is the most difficult point to decide, because things never comes out of nothing. But, on the other hand, a new class has to be more than just a new subdivision of a previous one. A good example of that is the relationship between Rhythm & Blue and Rock n' Roll : the second one started within the first one, but quickly showed distinctive aspects that separated them irremediably.

Terms used shall be MEANINGFULL, PRECISE and NOT MISLEADING. This is essential for two simple reasons : first, it is a good clue of the validity of a category, and second, it makes the classification handy for the common user, which doesn't always have a degree in Typographical history !
For example the use by Thibaudeau of the term Antique for qualifying "types with no serif" is quite misleading : Antique commonly refers to something very old, while those Antiques are the most modern faces of its classification ! Even if it was right for an educated type specialist, it wasn't for the user...
And some other terms used to describe Sans serifs are equally misleading : the meaning of Gothic (like in Franklin Gothic) and Grotesk is not unique, and can be understood wrongly, even by an experienced graphic designer.
A great step ahead was made by Vox when he decided to invent specific names for his categories. The names he created are precise, and avoid any confusion because of their novelty. But, to some extend, they are also too "academic" for common uses. You have to know history of Typography to understand what means concretely Garaldic or Didone...
So choosing terms, and using them at the accurate level of a classification is essential to make a classification usefull for everyone : terms only understandable by specialists should only be used at level used by specialist.

DINGBATS : these are drawings used to enliven the texts and lay-outs, like squares, stars or buttons. Because any image can be scanned and autotraced using a graphic software, dingbats are now including very different things, from small drawings to foreign stamps. A good modern definition would be "drawings that are not letters, used to enhance texts". It may includes collections of Black and white illustrations, but in fact, using type to manipulate Illustrations seems a bit stupid, and not really "cost-efficient"...

SYMBOLS : these specific letters, that generally includes special characters like currencies (dollar, pounds, Euro), and mathematical signs, are often presented as a separate genre, just like if the style of a symbol has to be different or the rest of the text it is included in. Why ?
First, because of a traditional reverence to Mathematic as something "superior" and so conceptualy "pure", "absolute" or "true" that it musn't be altered.
Second, because most typographers think it would be a waste of time to draw all theses rare signs that only a bunch of mathematicians know and may use ! They usually say "their are some few generic Symbol typefaces already available, so there's no need to lose time with this..."
This later argument is a bit true, but, on a conceptual side, rare mathematical symbols ain't different from the plus, less or equal signs ! So, there's no reason why they, like any symbol letter, shouldn't be drawn in the same style than any other letter.
Besides, on a practical side, the 256 letters limitation of font faces is no longer an excuse : Open Types are now offering far enough sign slots in the same font file to include all known symbols of the western world !
So, logically, Symbols, even mathematical ones, are not a category, but a variant within a family, like Alternates, Small capitals, etc. (See our Portrait of a family section for more infos about the variants in a family). So, we won't include them.

ROMANS : The very first forms of writings that directly originated our alphabetic tradition started with the Roman Empire. As soon as the 7th century B.C., Romans had borrowed the Greek alphabet, and turned it into what is called Capitalis Monumentalis, featuring the 23 letters that were to become our capitals (J, U and W were added much later). This Lapidary writing was used for monuments, and as a propaganda tool to glorify the Roman legions in all the occupied country of the Empire.
But there wasn't any real variant of it : the emerging of the concept of "style" (and subsequently of Typography), was a slow process.

The first step toward stylisation was the invention of Serifs : these small ornaments at the end of letters were intended to ensure the readability of the carved letters under every sun angles, and were also a handy mean to "sit" the letters on the imaginary baseline. The next step was the creation of the Quadrata, a refined and more "squared" version, that appeared in the 1st century B.C., and was used (mostly as letterine) until the 11th century. At the end of the Roman empire, it evolved into anther variant, called Rustica.
But the other typographic giant leap occured when Romans developped a more cursive writing for everyday uses : refered to as the Cursiva, it was the origin of most medieval writings, and subsequentely, of the lowercases.

UNCIALS : these are typographies inspired by Chistians manuscript writings. Uncials appeared during the 2nd century in Northern Africa, and were commonly used until the the 7th century.
They were an evolution of the Roman Cursiva, first into what is called the Roman Uncial, and then into the Demi-Uncial. They became the official writing for all the Chistian world since the 3rd century, and used as a way to separate the Christian world from the the pagans.
Visually, they are monocameral (still one set of letters), and deeply influenced by the use of the pen. Some of its variants are still in use nowaday, especially in Ireland (Irish Demi-Uncial). A famous example of contemporary uncial is American Uncial.

CAROLINES : this was the next step of manuscript writing, that began in the 8th century. Again, it was developped for political reasons : Charlemagne needed a common and specific writing that would help unifying his empire. In 789, he decided that all the known litterature of that time shall be rewrote, using a single "Carolingian" writing. So he founded the "Grand Scriptorium de Tours", in France, that was headed by the Abbé Alcuin. Alcuin choosed the Caroline, a very round, regular and easy to read writing. After a rapid spread through all the medieval Europe, it slowly evolved, and gave birth, around the 10th century, to the primitive forms of Frakturs.
Both Uncials and Carolines were the basis for what was to become our lowercases, and, assembled with the Roman Capitals, they gave birth to the Alphabet as we know it.

RUNES : This is an interesting case, that enhance the difference between Alphabets and Styles. Runes, also called Futhark, after the first six letters of this alphabet, existed from the 3rd to the 13th century, and was a specific alphabet used in Sandinavia, Northern Germany and Anglo-saxon islands. But, as a style, it was mostly a carved kind, and not really specific. So we shouldn't consider them as a genuine style. After all, someone could draw a slab-serif Runic typeface, as much as a script Rune. therefore, we'll consider that Runes are alternative typesets, like Cyrillic.

PRE-ROMANS WRITINGS : As we mentionned it above, the idea of a writing style emerged during the Roman Empire. There was of course alphabets before, like Greek, or Phoenician, but, it is very hard to differenciate some "styles" among them. It took a long time before writing became so "commonly" used that people started to develop original (personal) styles, especially because writing was strongly linked to religion, and so very conservative. So, just like for Runes, one shall be very careful not to confuse ancient alphabets and ancient styles. But, because we want our new classification to be open to new discoveries, there shall be a category for pre-roman styles, we may call "Primitive Writings", or in a less misleading manner, Ancients.

GRUNGE TYPES : They first appeared in the USA, and especially around David Carson and the magazines he was art directing in the early 90' (Ray Gun, Bikini, etc.). The idea behind them is to defy all rules of the "academic" graphic design, and to explore the limits of legibility.
Concretely, this "Punk" typography mostly consist in manipulating, trashing or destroying types using every tool available (Xeroxing it, cutting it, stamping it, etc.)
But as people are too lazy to do it themselves, and because of the auto-tracing ability of modern graphic tools (transforming an image into a postscript graphic shape), some "pre-grunged" types have quicky appeared. And as it is a easy and fun to do, such faces soon flooded the market, especially as free or shareware fonts.


Or, to put it more academically, is it a new genre of typography ? Obviously not for trashed/distorted faces : any type can be trashed, from a Sans serif to a Black letter. So it is in fact a graphic treatment.

But we might pay some attention to a more complex kind of Grunge faces : those having iregular shapes. They features distorted or manipulated lettershapes, but also "clean lettershapes drawn using a "non-linear grid". This means that they pushes the limits on a different level : when trash faces focuses on the edges and filling of letters, Iregular faces are dealing with the architecture of letters, and the way each one represents a variation around the common basic shape of a typeface. This is indeed far more interesting.
But unfortunately, most Iregular faces available are not really as interesting as they shall be. Most are :
- Hand-drawn faces (that shall rank as "treated" variants of Writings)
- Manipulated, combinated or distorted faces (that shall also rank as Treatment of their respective original faces)
How sad, because this could be a very interesting new direction to explore...

As a conclusion, all the so-called Grunge typefaces fail to be conceptual or revolutionary enough to give birth to any new category. In fact, the grunge genre is more a graphic trend than a typographic one, just like, for example, Constructivist's lego-esque composition was in the early 20th century. It is a new style that graphic designers can apply, not only to type, but also to the pictures and the lay-outs.

HANDWRITTEN FACES are another so-called class that isn't a real one : for the same technological reasons that produced Grunge or combinated faces, a lot of people are creating handwritten faces nowadays, by scanning and autotracing some hand writing.


There are two different situations here : first, it is an handwritten attempt at drawing a typeface (of any kind, from Sans Serif to Gothic !), and second, it is an original handwriting. In both case it is a treatment : in the first case it shall be accounted as a treatment of the original face it tries to emulate (ex. :an Helvetica black handwritten), and in the second one, it is a good old script, with the same handwritting treatment. In any case Handwritten is a treatment.

FUN FONTS : This is a depreciatory term used by "serious" typographers to refer to all the easy-made fonts provided by individuals, especially on the Internet. First, some funny faces available on the web are very seriously done. Second, this terms is mostly an easy way for old jerks to put all small foundries in a huge bag and throw them into the water with the feets stuck in a block of concrete !


Of course, most free or shareware faces are only Display faces (i.e. only legible at large point sizes, for titles for example), but some other don't ! And being "fun" is certainly not a genre...
By the way, any type can have a Display variant, that is, a version of it specifically redrawn for being effective for large pointsize uses. So it is a variant, and you shouldn't consider them as a genuine class, even if your as big a corporation as Adobe !

COMBINATED TYPEFACES : some people tried to put up a specific category for types that are combinations of two existing faces. The first of this kind was Dead History from Emigre, that combinated a serif and a rounded sans serif.


But the fact that a lot of people tried to produce their own version of it doesn't mean that it's a new genre ! The so-called Combinated faces are in fact either manipulated faces (i.e. : a Treatment), or, when really creative, a subdivision of Mixed types, as described below.

MIXED TYPEFACES : Was it inspired by combinated types, or simply by the need to create some more distinctive and "anti-trash" designs, no one will never know, but a new breed appeared in the mid-nineties, that was pushing the boundaries between Serifs and Sans serifs.


These faces are taking caracteristics of both of them, and combine them into a very specific result : a kind of neo-classisism among Sans-serifs, or a modernization of Serifs. Of course, there was already a subdivision of Sans serifs gathering faces with serif-like variations of thickness (Humanists, not to be confused with the Humanistic serif of Vox). But the mixed types are much more distinctives : some letter have serifs while some have not, and it is more about clever details than evident features...
Because this is still an emerging genre, it doesn't have yet gained recognition : these faces are so new and mind-puzzling that it is still hard to envision them as a global phenomenon, and they still end up as "weird" Serifs or sans-serifs. But these faces can be considered as a real alternative to Serifs or Sans serifs, and so represents a real new class of typeface.
(The example we used here, the Suburban from Emigre, is even more strange, as it was in fact originally meant to be a modernization of the Script style ! God truly has his own way...)BR>

TRANSGENRE FAMILIES : This is another recent evolution of Typography. More and more typographers are producing different versions of their faces, including a serif and a sans serif.
This is interesting, but, to our point of view, and contrary to what some observers recently said, it doesn't represent a new category in itself : it is simply an evolution in the palette of Typography, that brings more flexibility and shows that the family concept is much more larger than typographers used to think : a type can be similar enough to be part of a specific family, while being different enough on a serif/sans serif level.
It also demonstrates the fact that the serif is less and less a good item to separate one category from another (but we'll talk more about thereafter).

REVIVAL TYPEFACES : because all kind of people are creating typographies nowadays, and not only fin order to type menus or corporate reports, there is a lot of typefaces that are reviving of pre-typographic writing forms, ranging from old to extremely ancient, or even imaginary (if you believe that Cthulhu doesn't exist, you fools!)
Our key to handle this is still the same : as long as a face is alphabetic (that is, using letters to write words) and is turned into a typographic form, it has to be included in some of our subdivisions.
And that includes IMAGINARY TYPEFACES (Tolkian runes, or Star Wars alien alphabets for example).

GRAPHIC TOOLS : This is another recent category that deserves our attention. These "types" are using the typographic process, but instead of producing texts, they are intented to produce graphics.
A good example is the Woof family from Number nine, that uses typefaces to creates doted grids, offering various weights throught its different variants. Another famous one is Whirligig from Emigre : it offers a great deal of illustrations that, used as texts, connects perfectly to create beautiful graphic patterns.


This is very interesting : of course these are not letters, but in a way, it is still Typography, as is exploit the typographic process. On the other hand, these are not symbols or dingbats, as they are not gatherings of independant drawings meant to be used separately. So, to our point of view, and to the user's one, this is indeed a new "kind" of Typography, a non-writing one, but a very useful one.

Here comes Dr. Frankenstein...