Typography

Member lesson

Type in the wild, identification practice

Lesson 34 of 34 in Typography.

The 5 best Tricks to Identify a Font · Typography.Guru
Lesson

Learning to identify typefaces is the fastest way to actually see them. The practice is simple: photograph lettering you notice, work out what it is, and be wrong often enough to start noticing the details that decide it.

serifbracketedfootsansno footslabsquare footscriptjoinedclassification describes the foot, not the mood
Four classes of typeface shown by the shape of the stroke ending.
Three panels: a phone photographing a shop sign, a magnifier over a small curled detail, and three cards with a tick beside the matching one.
Someone photographs a sign, studies one small curl through a magnifier, then finds the matching card. Naming a typeface starts with a few tell-tale details.
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  1. Question 1, locked

    Which of these words means this? “Working out which typeface something is set in.”

    • Shirorekha
    • Pageview
    • Webfont licence
    • Identification
  2. Question 2, locked

    Which of these words means this? “A distinctive character that narrows the field fast. The g, the R leg, the numeral 1.”

    • Retail licence
    • Distributor
    • Tell
    • Foundry
  3. Question 3, locked

    Which of these words means this? “A modern face based on a historical one. Why two faces can look almost identical.”

    • Revival
    • Registered axis
    • Instance
    • Axis
End of TypographyMembers onlyNow play it5 games from this module at four levels, and a stamp for your ticket book.

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