Family Classifications of Type

Oldstyle
Oldstyle Characteristics

• A greater contrast between thick and thin stokes. 
• Wider, gracefully bracketed serifs withflat bases. 
• larger x-height
• Diagonal stress in rounded strokes
• the height of capitals matches that of ascenders. 
• Numerals are cap-height and consistent in size.

John Baskerville: One of the chief influences of this period was English manufacturer John Baskerville, who, for most of his life, had nothing at all to do with printing or typography. He was a successful businessman, which was the decorating of metal articles with coats of varnish and paintings of floral and pastoral images. By all accounts, he was not well liked, being exceedingly outspoken, strong willed, and egocentric.
Baskerville retired, a wealthy man, in 1750. He had developed a private passion for typography and printing in his later years and promptly set up a printing office in Birmingham. He was critical of the printing quality of his day and had no doubt he could improve almost every aspect of the trade. 
His first goal was to design the “perfect” letterform. Although he much admired the work of William Caslon, he felt he could make significant improvements. Baskerville‘s designs were based on thinner hairline strokes and delicate, tapering serifs and, while he considered them to be a great success, they had one major flaw: they were too delicate to be reproduced on 18th century printing presses.
In order to successfully print his types, Baskerville almost single-handedly advanced the state of printing technology. He built a sturdier printing press of metal, capable of even, precise pressure. He developed a process of manufacturing paper with a whiter surface and smoother finish (called wove) and developed ink formulas capable of producing richer, denser blacks.
Baskerville further challenged printing convention in the design of his books, avoiding the predominant liberal use of symbols and embellishments. Instead, he relied almost entirely on type, with added space between lines and wider page margins. His first books were so startling in their appearance that they were much criticized in England, but were enthusiastically received by the rest of Europe. His type became a standard favorite and strongly influenced future type design.

Baskerville
Designed by John Baskerville in 1760

John Baskerville‘s innovations in printing technology contributed to the design characteristics of this typeface. It displays a sturdy, workman-like feeling. It's a very readable text face and a good type to use to add length to text, due to its larger x-height.

Modern
Modern Characteristics

• Extreme contrast between thick and thin strokes
• Hairline serifs without bracketing
• Small x-height
• Vertical stress in rounded strokes

Giambattista Bodoni: In the late 18th century, the new attitude toward type design was exemplified by Fournier and Didot in France, and most importantly by Giambattista Bodoni in Italy.
Bodoni had been hired by Duke Ferdinand of Parma, a noted patron of the arts, to establish a premiere royalty press. His concern was printing of the highest quality not for the masses, but for the aristocracy. The craftsmanship of Bodoni was superb and his attention to detail was legendary. The quality of his printing was unmatched and he came to be regarded as the finest printer of his day.
In the design of his printing types, he sought to create a unique letterform of such beauty as to be admired for its own sake and, further, he wished to bring to a logical conclusion the work of Baskerville, who was his idol. Bodoni’s desire was a type which was suitable for contemporary times rather than the age of the scribe. Instead of the stroke of the pen, his inspiration was the mathematical precision and delicate hairline strokes characteristic of copperplate engraving, which was very popular at that time.

Bodoni
Designed by Giambattista Bodoni in 1788
While not very readable in small sizes or in long text passages, Bodoni lends a striking visual quality to text. It requires more generous spacing than most types, even in larger sizes.

Slab Serif

Slab Serif Characteristics

• minimal variation of thick and thin strokes
• heavy serifs with squared-off ends
• large x-heights.
• vertical stress in rounded strokes

The impact of the Industrial Revolution brought profound changes to printing and typography in the 19th century. Manufacturing and mass production of consumer goods had two major effects on print communication: the creation of new kinds of print media and the emergence of more functional type designs for commercial purposes.
For three and a half centuries, typography and printing had been concerned exclusively with the publishing of books. By the early 1800s, the impact of the Industrial Revolution propelled the printing industry in a new direction. The advent of industrial manufacturing created a need to promote the sale of ready-made goods and, as the technology of industry became more complex, manufacturers required a more literate workforce. In addressing these needs, the commercial, or job, printer emerged. New print media, magazines and newspapers, proliferated with great appeal to the masses. Print advertising emerged in these media as an effective way to sell products to the masses.
The impact of technology on printing, paper manufacturing, and mechanical typesetting created a demand for a new style in type design that was compatible with mass-production.
The advent of print journalism and advertising demanded types that were not only readable, but bold and distinctive enough to catch the reader’s attention.
This was the era of Slab Serif, or Egyptian typefaces.

Many of the slab serif display types of the early nineteenth century were
created to attract attention in newspapers and advertising.
Slab Serif faces generally return to lesser contrast between thick and thin strokes with serifs that are as thick as the strokes and squared off at the ends.
While most of these typefaces were exceptionally bold and decorative, reminiscent of the newspapers and wanted posters of the old west, a few were quite refined and remain popular today, such as Clarendon, and Bookman.

Clarendon
Released by R. Besley & Co. in 1845
Clarendon’s simple, bold design was well suited to the demands of early commercial, or ‘job’, printing.
This period is generally considered to be backward step in the evolution of type design. The trend toward a more refined aesthetic that began with Oldstyle forms and continued with Modern types was overshadowed by the dictates of mass production and new print media.
The design of new types was influenced more by commercial popularity than aesthetic development. This notion of popular appeal is illustrated by the fact that many of these typefaces were given Egyptian-sounding names, such as Cairo and Karnak, to exploit the public fascination with the discoveries of ancient Egyptian artifacts. The Slab Serif typefaces are often referred to as Egyptian typefaces.
To meet the demand for distinctive display types, by the end of the 19th century type foundries developed scores of Slab Serif variations.
Decorative
For most of type's history, the use of decorative characters was applied to the page design of books, and usually limited to ornamenting title pages, chapter headings, and initials. In the 19th century, the proliferation of Slab Serif typefaces did not ultimately satisfy the insatiable public appetite for distinct and ornate types.
Posters and advertisements relied heavily on large size type, called display type, to attract attention. Because of the size of display type, readability was less important than visual impact. Display types began to display ornamentation to achieve this impact.
The designs which emerged in profusion during this period completely abandoned centuries of aesthetic evolution in favor of nearly any visual trick which might catch the public eye. Types became bolder, incorporated outlines and inlines, were colored and shaded, or cast three-dimensional shadows. Most of these ornate, even flamboyant, typefaces were received with immediate, if short lived, success.

Categories of Early Decorative Typefaces

Competitive type foundries, by mid century, discovered that they could successfully market any unusual typeface.

This trend was so prevalent that by the turn of the century, popular typography in Europe and the United States had become overly ornate.
Typographers regarded the visual anarchy of type design as a giant step backward, thus fueling the new design movements of the early 20th century.


Sans Serif
The early 20th century saw continued technological advancement in printing and typesetting, flourishing of advertising and print journalism, and a contemporary movement in type design, influenced by the European Bauhaus and De Stijl design movements. For new generation of designers and typographers, the notion emerged of the typographic character as an expressive design element. Very much a backlash against the typographic excesses of the 19th century, the new design direction sought a basic letterform which was suitable for contemporary communication.
Sans Serif Characteristics

• little or no variation between thick and thin strokes
• lack of serifs
• larger x-height
• no stress in rounded strokes

A classic example of this movement is Futura, designed by Paul Renner in 1928. Renner, a German design teacher, attempted to fashion an alphabet from the most basic geometric components, completely devoid of ornamentation. Futura became the first popular Sans Serif typeface (Sans Serif type actually appeared more than fifty years earlier, but were ignored in favor of the more popular Slab Serif designs).

Futura
Designed by Paul Renner in 1930
While the first Sans Serif designs appeared in the 19th century, the first such typeface to become popular was Futura. Futura’s geometric simplicity was in perfect harmony with the prevailing design aesthetic of the Swiss Bauhaus movement.

• The lack of serifs and obvious weight variation requires spacing between letters and lines in order to maintain readability.
• It is generally difficult to read in long text passages, especially in smaller sizes.
• It is an excellent type for headlines and shorter amounts of text.

Sans serif typefaces abandoned not only the serif, but variation in stroke weight. The x-heights were significantly increased, a practice which has come to exemplify contemporary taste (many 20th century revivals of earlier type designs included enlarging the original x-heights).
The Sans Serif movement continued for several decades with the development of immensely popular designs such as Univers, designed by Adrian Frutiger in 1956, Helvetica, designed in 1957 by Max Meidinger, and Avant Garde, designed in 1970 by Herb Lubalin and Tom Carnase.

Script
Script and cursive typefaces are those designed to literally represent handwriting or hand lettering styles. As a general distinction, scripts have linked or joining lowercase letters, similar to handwriting, while cursives appear as un-joined hand lettering.
     
       Script types resemble handwriting              Cursive types resemble pen or brush lettering, 
and feature joining lower case characters.    with lower case characters that are not linked.
Script and cursive designs can be calligraphic, appearing to be pen drawn, formal, bearing the look of engraving, as seen on social printing such as invitations and announcements, or brush, more informal styles appearing to be brush drawn. Most designs feature ornate, swashed uppercase characters, making these typestyles largely confusing and unreadable when set in all caps. These typefaces began to appear in the late 19th century, as more and more foundries competed for the commercial printing market. There is a tremendous variety of scripts and cursives available today, most of them designed in the in the 1930s at the height of their popularity. From that time through the early 1950s, pen and brush lettering were hugely popular in advertising and commercial printing.

Sources: http://graphicdesign.spokanefalls.edu/tutorials/process.htm