

The Periodic Table of Typefaces - asnyder
http://i.gizmodo.com/5169466/the-periodic-table-of-typefaces

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tptacek
This is a nice looking poster, but I don't see how it is in any way a
"periodic table" of typefaces. What are the relations I'm supposed to be
seeing as I read down and across it? I like seeing the small type specimens,
but abbreviations of the names of the typefaces aren't particularly valuable
(are you really getting a sense of what Avenir is from "Av"?).

~~~
Zev
You have to be a bit of a font nerd (or at the very least, spend a lot of time
looking at fonts) to realize how its laid out. Same way you have to
know/remember a decent bit of chemistry to know the groups the table is
arranged in. Only, design is a bit subjective, so its not perfectly aligned
like periods are in chemistry.

So while a chemist can look at the table and realize that potassium might be
substituted for sodium, a designer can look at this table and see that Avenir
might be a good substitution for Din if needed.

Some things that jumped out at me about its organization: Take a look at the
serifs on the fonts. The further up/to the left, the lack of or smaller the
serifs are. The further down and to the right, the greater the serifs are. The
bottom row is script-esque/handwriting fonts.

Also, they're roughly grouped by group classification; Sans serif Grotestque
(Helvetica, Univers, etc), Neo-grotesque (Highway Gothic), Humanist (Gill
Sans) and Geometric (Futura or Century Gothic) or Serif Old Style (Garamond,
Palatino), Transitional (Times New Roman, Baskerville) or Modern (Didot,
Century Schoolbook)

