A Helpful Font Chart

Carl Shank • October 5, 2022

There happen to be a number of ways to classify fonts. Some of them make more sense to me than others, though I would hasten to point out I am no professional typographer. Robert Bringhurst in his masterful book, The Elements of Typographic Style, Hartley & Marks, 1992 edition, chooses categories consequent with historical periods of fine art, thus, Scribal or Carolingian, Renaissance, Mannerist, Baroque, Rococo, Neoclassical, Romantic, Realist, Geometric Modernism, Expressionist, Elegiac Post-Modernism, Geometric Post-Modernism.(1) Thomas Phinney's classifications taught in most design schools include: Old Style, Transitional, Modern, Slab Serif (or Egyptian), fat faces, wood type, Art Nouveau, Art Deco, synthesis, and grunge.(2) David Bergsland, from which I adapted the following chart and its descriptors, reduces the families to: Serif, Sans-Serif, Script and Decorative. Again, that is not all there is to the many fonts out there, but it is a good start.


The chart below gives a graphic representation of Bergsland's system of classification, along with some of my additional notes. Enjoy!


(1) Bergsland, David. Practical Font Design With FontLab 5 (pp. 217). Radiqx Press. Kindle Edition. (2) Ibid, p. 219.

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Typography and Religion in the De Stijl Movement

By Carl Shank • July 8, 2025
The De Stijl (Dutch for “The Style”) typographical and art movement emerged around 1917 and significantly influenced modern art, design and thought itself. In the wake of the chaos of World War I, the movement sought to express a new vision of harmony and order. De Stijl was not just an art style, but a comprehensive aesthetic philosophy. It sought universal beauty, as abstracted from individual beauty, and a visual language and typography based on simplicity, geometry and primary colors, namely red, blue and yellow. Its core characteristics were the use of straight horizonal and vertical lines, the use of rectangles and squares, an emphasis on asymmetry, and the favoring of pure abstraction. De Stijl was deeply influenced by the philosophy of Neo-Plasticism, a theory developed by Piet Mondrian, which sought to depict reality in a pure, universal form. Behind this philosophy was the religious thrust of Theosophy, particularly the spiritual writings of Helena Blavatsky (1831–1891) and Rudolf Steiner (1861–1925).

Font Restoration Mechanics

By Carl Shank • May 13, 2025
Font Restoration Mechanics. Let me begin by giving an example from the world of theology, my first love and profession. Many people, even many non-Christian people, know that we are saved “by faith.” But faith in what or who? Well, faith in God. But this is imprecise. It is faith in Jesus Christ the Bible tells us. But once again, this too can be mistaken as just an intellectual nod of the mind toward Jesus without a real life change or transformation. More detailed biblical discussion, with appropriate distinctions, must be made so that we don’t make “faith” a human, works-based activity we do to please God. Or some existential “experience” with no definable qualities. Digging even deeper, faith saves no one, though it is absolutely necessary for salvation. It is Jesus Christ who saves. Faith becomes an “instrument” of salvation. Theologians have been unpacking this salvation “by faith alone” for centuries. Books and “how-to” sermons have been written and preached and taught here. Do you see the tremendous amount of refinement that “faith” requires? Precise typography claims similar distinctions and refinements in letter development and typeface creation. CARE Typography has been able to restore older hand-drawn fonts from various sources to modern digital typefaces. One of those most prolific sources has been from Alphabets Old and New — For The Use of Craftsmen, With An Introductory Essay on ‘Art in the Alphabet’” by Lewis F. Day, London, 1910.There is a wealth of older fonts shown by Day, one of them being a Roman Forum font from an old Roman Forum engraving. It might be thought that to copy and paste the letters and import them into a font design program, like FontLab’s Fontographer, is simple and rather straight-forward. Not so. From a font designer’s work, the transfer from a screenshot of an old book to a clear and professional open type font (SEE my Blog on “Open Type Fonts” in “More About Fonts” March 9, 2021) takes care and lots of work. It is both tedious and time intensive. The details of such work are often overlooked. Here’s an inside look at such work.
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