Ask Dr. Design
Tuesday, September 2nd, 2008In an effort to bring you quality information, News Design School is proud to introduce Dr. Design to answer all your questions and solve your design problems.
Jason, Texas: Why do some typefaces have them little feet kind of things on’em and some don’t?
Dr. Design: Well, Tex, those typeface-ical varmints hanging off the end of the letters are called serifs, after the Persian Shah of Omar Serif, who introduced them to the Greeks around 1000 B.C. The Greeks are credited with inventing serifs and then the Romans stole the idea (along with much else from Greek intellectual life). That’s why we often refer to serif faces as “Roman” type. All that was left for the Greeks was gibberish type used as a placeholder, but they took it because the Italians were putting together a serious bid for what we know now as Greeked type. Italy then had to settle for italics, type that couldn’t even stand up straight, and quite frankly, is a bit effiminate.
That’s when the French got ticked off about being left out of typeface design, and using a special guillotine, Marie Antoinetted the serifs right off. Their general lack of imagination led to letters with same-width strokes, and of course no serifs. That’s why type with the serifs tragically removed by French typeface butchers uses the term “sans serif,” which translates roughly to “Sacrebleu! Zay are gone!”
Tex, hope that helps.
E-mail questions to Dr. Design at doc@newsdesignschool.com.