Like they ate mummies in the 17th century and that’s kind of why there aren’t a lot left. The Europeans were kind of super obsessed with Egypt. They became commonplace throughout the Italian Renaissance. If you find that something being described as “Roman” has the general connotation of being “civilized,” the Victorians would agree with you. Throughout history, serifs were often associated with the Roman Empire–as it was Roman inscriptions that gave them their popularity. Like all new technologies, people were scared of printing presses at first. They were even used when printing presses came about–it made the printed text look handwritten. It’s generally more accepted that serif fonts originate from flourishes of handwritten work. Others, like Timothy Samara’s Typography Workbook allege that serifs were used to neaten the chiseled letters.

These brush strokes would kind of flare out like serifs, so when the carvers got to their work they ended up also carving in the flares. This theory alleges that before being carved into stone, painters would paint the lettering first. A prominent theory as to the origins of the serifs relates to these carvings. Serifs originate from Greek inscriptions into stone. Schreef just refers to the marks of a pen. The 18th century Dutch word schreef is sometimes credited as the word’s contemporary origin. So Why Do We Have Serifs?Įven the word “serif” is debatable in its origin. Sometimes you’ll see serif fonts called “roman” fonts. In case you were wondering, old sans-serif fonts were once alternatively referred to as “ grotesque fonts. Sans would be applied to serif as “sans-serif” or “sanserif” by 1830. It dates back to the 14th century and is linked directly to Old French. The prefix “sans,” then, just means “without” in the most direct translation. Sans-serif means your typeface does not have serifs.

But what about “sans”? Well the prefix “sans” in sans-serif means what you probably think it does if you’ve put two and two together. Times New Roman, on the other hand, is a serif font. We’re assuming you’re not using some kind of extension that changes the font in your browser. For reference, the font you are reading the majority of this post in is not a serif font. Serifs are the little tails at the ends and bottom of each letter in a font. So what makes a serif font a serif font? What does “serif” mean anyway? What Do Serif and Sans Mean Anyway? Maybe also Comic Sans but someone definitely had a visceral reaction to the thought of something being written in Comic Sans. Which you might think is weird because everything is basically either Times New Roman or Calibri.

You’ve probably heard fonts referred to as serif and sans-serif before.

Serif fonts in word 2016