Product Code Database
A display typeface is a typeface that is intended for use in display type ( display copy) at large sizes for titles, headings, , and other eye-catching elements, rather than for extended passages of body text.David Consuegra (2011). 9781621535829, Skyhorse Publishing Company, Incorporated. . ISBN 9781621535829
Display typefaces will often have more eccentric and variable designs than the simple, relatively restrained typefaces generally used for body text. They may take inspiration from other genres of lettering, such as signpainting, calligraphy or an aesthetic appropriate to their use, perhaps ornamented, exotic, abstracted or drawn in the style of a different writing system.
Several genres of font are particularly associated with display setting, such as slab serif, script font, reverse-contrast and to a lesser extent sans serif. (1999). 9780953520107, Friends of the St Bride Printing Library. ISBN 9780953520107 Walter Tracy defines display typefaces in the metal type sense as "sizes of type over 14 point" and in design that "text types when enlarged can be used for headings, display types, if reduced, cannot be used for text setting."
Titling fonts are a subset of display typefaces which are typically used for and titles. They are often only uppercase, and have stroke widths optimized for large sizes.
The arrival of the poster and greater use of signage spurred the arrival of new kinds of letterform, both as lettering and in print. Historian James Mosley has written that "big types had been cast in sand, using wooden patterns, for some centuries by but there is evidence that English typefounders only began to make big letters for posters and other commercial printing towards 1770, when Thomas Cottrell made his 'Proscription or Posting letter of great bulk and dimension' and William Caslon II cast his 'Patagonian' or 'Proscription letters'."
New technologies, notably riveted "sanspareil" matrices made printing at large sizes easier from the beginning of the nineteenth century. At the same time, new designs of letter began to appear around the beginning of the nineteenth century, such as "fat face" typefaces (based on serif faces of the period, but much bolder), (2025). 9781568984278, Princeton Architectural Press. ISBN 9781568984278 (first seen from Vincent Figgins around 1817), (already used in custom lettering but effectively unused in printing before the 1830s) and new blackletter faces. Many nineteenth-century display typefaces were extremely, aggressively bold or condensed in order to attract attention. An important development that followed was pantograph-engraved wood type, which allowed cheap printing of large type on posters. Equally, some display typefaces such as Cochin and Koch-Antiqua have a particularly delicate build with a low x-height, and this style was very popular around the start of the twentieth century. (2025). 9781567922400, David R. Godine. ISBN 9781567922400
In the past, almost all decorative lettering other than that on paper was created as custom or hand-painted lettering. The use of fonts in place of lettering has increased due to new printing methods, phototypesetting, and digital typesetting, which allow fonts to be printed at any desired size. This has made it possible to use fonts in situations where before hand-lettering would be most common, such as on business logos and metal fabricated lettering. As a result, many modern digital typeface families such as Neutraface, Neue Haas Grotesk, and Arno include both text styles and display companion with a more delicate design. Walter Tracy comments that in adapting a text face to display use such as in a headline "a judicious closing-up of the letters" improves the appearance.
A more prosaic genre of "display typefaces" is those intended for signage, such as Johnston, Highway Gothic, Transport and Clearview. These often have adaptations to increase legibility and make letters more distinct from each other. For example, Johnston and Transport have a curl on the lower-case 'L' to distinguish it from an upper-case 'i'.
In German the term "Akzidenzschrift" is used for faces not intended for body text but for commercial or trade printing, without implying a specific size range, so including small-size sans-serifs in uses such as on forms or tickets. The famous sans-serif Akzidenz-Grotesk's name derives from this. means some occasion or event (in the sense of "something that happens", not in the sense of a high-class social event or occasion) and was therefore used as a term for trade printing; Akzidenzschrift was by the 1870s a generic term meaning typefaces intended for these uses. A modern German-language dictionary describes it as work such as advertisements and forms. (2025). 9783506741097, Schöningh. ISBN 9783506741097 The origin of the word is Latin accidentia, defined by Lewis and Short as "that which happens, a casual event, a chance".
Note that these genres may also be seen in custom lettering, with which this topic overlaps. Older examples of lettering are often custom-drawn, rather than fonts.
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![, 1786. Type is similar to Baskerville.]]Welsh-language poster, 1818, using a bold italic inline "fat face" type.](http://www.upcscavenger.com/wiki/DKNVS award 1780 poster.jpg/){kind=link}
