Classification
For the purposes of type classification, sans-serif designs can be divided into four major groups:
- Grotesque, early sans-serif designs, such as Grotesque, Akzidenz Grotesk, and Franklin Gothic.
- Neo-grotesque or Transitional or Realist, modern designs such as Standard, Bell Centennial, MS Sans Serif, Helvetica, Univers, Highway Gothic, and Arial. These are the most common sans-serif fonts. They are relatively straight in appearance and have less line width variation than Humanist sans-serif typefaces. Transitional sans-serif is sometimes called "anonymous sans-serif" due to its relatively plain appearance.
- Humanist (Antique Olive, Calibri, Johnston, Lucida Grande, Segoe UI, Gill Sans, Myriad, Frutiger, Trebuchet MS, Tahoma, Verdana and Optima). These are the most calligraphic of the sans-serif typefaces, with some variation in line width and more legibility than other sans-serif fonts.
- Geometric (Futura, ITC Avant Garde, Century Gothic, Gotham, or Spartan). As their name suggests, Geometric sans-serif typefaces are based on geometric shapes, like near-perfect circle and square. Note the optically circular letter "O" and the simple construction of the lowercase letter "a". Geometric sans-serif fonts have a very modern look and feel. Of these four categories, geometric fonts tend to be the least useful for body text.
Note that in some sans-serif fonts, such as Arial, the capital-i and lowercase-L appear identical. Verdana, however, keeps them distinct because Verdana's capital-i, as an exception, has serifs. Other fonts may have two horizontal bars on the capital-i, a curved tail on the lowercase-L, or both.
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