Sans-serif
| File:Serif sample ABC in Arial, Times, Times with serifs highlighted.png | Sans serif font |
| Serif font | |
| (Serifs highlighted) |
A typeface or font is sans serif if it has no serifs, the small cross-bars at the ends of strokes.
Sans serif designs are a relatively recent typographical phenomenon in the history of type design. The first specimen appears to be the two-line English so-called "Egyptian" font released in 1816 by William Caslon's foundry, England. They are commonly, but not exclusively used for display typography applications such as signage, headings and other situations where clear meaning is imperative but continuous reading is not required.
Typefaces with serifs are often considered easier to read in long passages than those without. Studies on the matter are ambiguous, suggesting that most of this effect is due to the greater familiarity of serif typefaces.
Sans serif designs are broadly divided into 4 major groups for the purposes of type classification:
- grotesques (early sans serif designs, such as Grotesque or Royal Gothic)
- neo-grotesques (Standard, Helvetica and Univers),
- humanist (Edward Johnston's Railway type, Gill Sans or Frutiger) and
- geometric (Futura or Spartan).
Other commonly used sans serif fonts include Lucida, Arial, Optima, Tahoma and Verdana.
The origin of the name is obscure, but in any case almost as recent as the face. The oldest citations in the Oxford English Dictionary are 1841 for sans serif, which the OED gives as sanserif, and 1830 for serif. Indeed, the OED speculates that serif was a back formation from sanserif. On the other hand, Webster's Third New International Dictionary traces serif to the Dutch schreef meaning "stroke", and ultimately through German schreiben and Latin scribere, both also meaning "to write".
The OED's earliest citation for grotesque in this sense is 1875, giving "stone-letter" as a synonym. It would seem to mean "out of the ordinary" in this usage, as in art grotesque usually means "elaborately decorated". Other synonyms include Doric and Gothic.