It used to be easy to tell the difference when there were different methods for setting text and than there were for display. In fact, you didn't need to know there was a difference. It's just the way it was done and you didn't have any choice when specifying type.

The line started getting blurry with phototypesetting systems and digital type. There was also a trend in the 70s (notably promoted by ITC) to create typefaces that were suitable for both text and display with only one design.

Personally, I think that losing the distinction between the two has been generally a bad thing. Many popular typefaces that have gone from metal to phototypesetting to digital have left their display cuts behind. The cuts you see now were generally designed for 12 point and many of them don't look that good large. You used to be able to get the display cut with headline setting phototype machines or even rub down letters. The display cuts have, for the most part, not made it to the digital typesetting world.

Typefaces designed in the last 20 years are perhaps a different story. The same machines are used for both text and display and type designers are aware of this and, presumably, take this into account. It's been unusual to see typefaces released with different designs for text and display, but there are exceptions. House Industries has some like this, and I know there are others.

I really miss the display cuts of certain classic typefaces like Garamond (ATF), News Gothic, Futura, Bodoni (ATF), even Helvetica. They are simply not availble in digital form and we are left with the clunky text cuts if we want to use them.

This isn't a stupid question at all - it's a central one, but sadly not generally discussed.

I'd also like to hear everybody's opinions!

hhp

Tyfa text works well for me as a display face. But i don't use that power as much as i could.

There is no easy formula. And theories and principles will only take you so far.

The best way to understand the difference between the properties of text and display fonts is to examine the differences in a typeface that has both. For instance Slimbach's Adobe Jenson, with its "optical scaling", ITC Bodoni, any one of many serif faces from Font Bureau or Hoefler, or my own Walburn or Worldwide.

That would include experiments, varying parameters such as tracking, leading, line-kength, scaling and paper stock as well as font and size, preferably with press tests.

You can also study things such as ascender length in some typefaces which have it as a variable (Fournier?), or by comparing similar fonts with different x-heights, e.g. Palatino vs. Aldus; or Adobe Garamond vs. ITC Garamond.

so ITC Garamond is a display face... isn�t it?

H�ctor, when Herb Lubalin was alive he redesigned alot of faces and they all had one thing in common a huge x height. I don't think that necessarly makes it a display face, but I don't like to use alot of text with any of the ITC faces.

Herb Lubalin did not design many of the ITC faces. The large x-height was dictated as much by graphic design at the time as it was by Lubalin and ITC.

Many ITC faces were developed as Display-Text. For use in large size block of text. Specifically for advertising and collateral work. I don't think anyone developing ITC faces in the 70s and 80s had any illusions of being text face designers.

>so ITC Garamond is a display face... isn�t it?

My point is this: you never know till you try! Why theorize about what would look best when you can easily put a typeface through its paces and see the results?

Here's my experience. I would say that both the big- and small- x -height Garamonds can be used for both text and display.

However, for text settings, each will have to be used in a different way. Typically, people use Adobe Garamond for a longer line length, and with more leading. So, if you are setting a novel, Adobe Garamond would be an appropriate text face, well leaded. However, for a retail catalog, ITC Garamond will set text with tighter leading, and shorter line length, for the necessary punch.

One used to be able to inspect these kinds of distinctions in type specimens that compared paragraphs of a typeface set in different sizes and leadings. For instance "The Designer's Guide to Text Type" (King and Esposito, 1980), which included showings of Garamond #3 and ITC Garamond.

As an art director in those days, I would occasionally photocopy the type from this book, trim it with a blade for rag right of the appropriate length, and stick it in my ad layouts to get an idea of what the whole effect would look like -- to get the spec right before sending my marked-up copy to the type house for setting, because I only got one kick at the can. (Well, two if I screwed up badly enough.)

WYSIWYG is much better than that, and it's also better than taking advice off the Internet.

Wasn't MM designed to define text to display sizes with one format?

Some MM faces have "Optical Scaling" as a design axis. However, there is no absolute correlation between what the "default" instance is for use at a particular type size, and what will work best in a particular setting.

While optical scaling can provide a useful starting point, it cannot replace the discerning eye of the typographer -- honed through education and experience, and exercised with a keen awareness of all the job criteria which affect readability (paper stock, ink color, reader age, press quality, etc) -- in deciding which instance of a typeface is best for setting at a particular size.

Quite apart from these "objective" typographic criteria, there is the aesthetic effect the typographer is aiming to create. For instance, one may decide to use a 6pt instance of an optically scaled face at 12 pt, with added letterspacing, to create a "naif" tone.