Most typefaces can be classified into one of four basic groups: those with serifs, those without serifs, scripts and decorative styles. Over the years, typographers and scholars of typography have devised various systems to more definitively categorize typefaces – some of these systems have scores of sub-categories.
A classification system can be helpful in identifying, choosing and combining typefaces. While four categories are clearly inadequate for design professionals, dozens become self-defeating. We have put together a somewhat hybrid system of 15 styles, based on the historical and descriptive nomenclature first published in 1954 as the Vox system – and still widely accepted as a standard today.