You refer to 'Latin' typefaces, which include Times New Roman, invented for the newspapers. Times New Roman is a serif typeface commissioned by The Times (London) newspaper in 1931 and designed by Stanley Morison together with Starling Burgess and Victor Lardent. It was first issued by the Monotype Corporation in 1932. Although no longer used by The Times, it is still widely used for book typography.
Because of its ubiquitous nature, Times New Roman has been influential in the subsequent development of a number of serif typefaces both before and after the start of the digital-font era. One notable example is Georgia, which has very similar stroke shapes to Times New Roman but wider serifs.
In typography, a typeface consists of a coordinated set of glyphs designed with stylistic unity. A typeface usually comprises an alphabet of letters, numerals, and punctuation marks; it may also include ideograms and symbols, or consist entirely of them, for example, mathematical or map-making symbols. The term typeface is often conflated with font, a term which, historically, had a number of distinct meanings before the advent of desktop publishing; these terms are now effectively synonymous when discussing digital typography.
Typefaces can be divided into two main categories: serif and sans-serif. Serifs comprise the small features at the end of strokes within letters. The printing industry refers to typeface without serifs as sans-serif (from French sans: "without"), or as grotesque (or, in German, grotesk).
Great variety exists among both serif and sans-serif typefaces. Both groups contain faces designed for setting large amounts of body text, and others intended primarily as decorative. The presence or absence of serifs forms only one of many factors to consider when choosing a typeface.
Typefaces with serifs are also called roman fonts, were 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. As a general rule, printed works such as newspapers and books almost always use serif typefaces, at least for the text body. Web sites do not have to specify a font and can simply respect the browser settings of the user. But of those web sites that do specify a font, most use modern sans-serif fonts, because it is commonly believed that, in contrast to the case for printed material, sans-serif fonts are easier than serif fonts to read on the low-resolution computer screen.
2006-11-14 06:03:54
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answer #1
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answered by DAVID C 6
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Do you mean Roman as in ancient Rome? Typography is the art and craft of printing, which wasn't invented until long after the fall of Rome (China in the 7th century had woodblock printing, apparently).
Best to re-phrase or re-think the question. You're not referring to Roman scribes, are you?
2006-11-10 10:32:24
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answer #2
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answered by Anonymous
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