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What Is a Font?

What is the definition of a font? What is the difference between a font and a typeface? What is a font on a computer? Discover these answers and more here!
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Nona Blackman
• 3 min read
Typography Fonts

What is the definition of a font? What is the difference between a font and a typeface? These are some of the questions we will be seeking to answer today before sharing some great examples of fonts from Envato. 

What Is a Font?

 A font is a set of text characters, numbers, punctuation, and symbols which have a specific style, weight, size, and effect. The variation of these elements makes for different types of fonts.

Learn more about fonts and how to identify them with these helpful tutorials:

What Is a Font vs. What Is a Typeface?

The typeface meaning often gets confused with the font meaning. A typeface is made up of fonts that share common design features. For example, the Arial typeface is made up of more than 28 fonts of differing styles, sizes, and weights like Arial Regular, Arial Bold, Arial Italic, etc.

Check out the following article to get a deeper understanding of what a typeface is:

What Is a Font on a Computer?

With the advent of desktop publishing, the term font began to be used to replace typeface, with operating systems and various applications using the term "font" in their menus instead of "typeface".

For example, you upload fonts to the Mac library, not typefaces, and both Adobe and Google offer font libraries, not typeface libraries. In addition, in web development, "typeface" has been completely replaced by the class name font-family.

These practices have blurred the lines between the two terms which, in common usage, are now used interchangeably. You can get more details on what makes each term different in the article below:

6 Amazing Fonts From Envato

Check out some top options from Envato's premium library. Envato is a subscription-based platform with millions of creative assets available. Download a myriad of fonts of all kinds and styles, all in one place. It's your one-stop creative destination.

Choose Your Favourite Font Today

Now you know what a font is, what a typeface is, and where to find the best examples of fonts. Head over to Envato Elements and download your favourites today!

If you want to keep learning about fonts and check out more font examples, explore these really helpful articles from Envato Tuts+:

Typography Fonts
Nona Blackman By