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Type classification

Lesson 3 of 34 in Typography.

Font Follows Feeling – A brief type classification and the moods they create · Pimp my Type

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A filing system for typefaces. The Vox-ATypI classification en.wikipedia.org is the one most people were taught: nine classes proposed by Vox in 1954, adopted by the Association Typographique Internationale in 1962, made a British Standard in 1967. On 27 April 2021 ATypI de-adopted it and set up a working group towards a larger system that covers the scripts of the world rather than one of them.

Four classes of typeface shown by the shape of the stroke ending.

A two-page spread from Bodoni's specimen book. The left page is the title page, MANUALE TIPOGRAFICO set in widely spaced capitals inside a double rule. The right page, numbered 244, shows the capitals A to L at enormous size in a serif with hairline-thin horizontals and heavy vertical stems. — A spread from Bodoni's 1818 type specimen book, with giant capitals whose thin strokes are almost hairlines. That extreme thick and thin became a style of its own.Manuale Tipografico, specimen page. Giambattista Bodoni, published posthumously by Margherita Dall'Aglio, Parma, 1818.Wikimedia Commons/Public domain

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Question 1, locked
What identifies a Didone?
- Extreme contrast between thick and thin, with flat unbracketed serifs
- Slab serifs of even weight
- No serifs and a single stroke weight
Question 2, locked
Which of these words means this? “The best-known classification of Latin type, devised by Maximilien Vox in 1954 and sorted into groups he called classicals, moderns and calligraphics.”
- Total cost of ownership
- Vox-ATypI
- Exclusivity period
- Custom typeface
Question 3, locked
Which of these words means this? “The high-contrast class with flat hairline serifs. Bodoni and Didot sit here.”
- Cursive by nature
- Didone
- Libre
- Reserved font name

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