Comparison of Serif, Sans-Serif & Monospace fonts

I loved the simple, minimalist way in which W3Schools explains Serif, Sans-Serif & Monospace fonts:

Generic family Font family (Web Safe) Description
Serif
  • Times New Roman
  • Georgia
  • Garamond
Serif fonts have small lines at the ends on some characters
Sans-serif
  • Arial
  • Verdana
  • Tahoma 
  • Trebuchet MS
"Sans" means without - these fonts do not have the lines at the ends of characters
Monospace
  • Courier New
  • Lucida Console
All monospace characters have the same width

On computer screens, sans-serif fonts are considered easier to read than serif fonts.

Web safe fonts are fonts that are pre-installed by many operating systems.

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Typographer Sarah Hyndman, author of the book “Why Fonts Matter,” found that people saw serif typefaces such as Times New Roman embodying “traditional,” “conventional” and “trustworthy” values while Calibri and other sans-serif typefaces were seen as “confident,” “friendly,” and “honest.”

The US State Department announced in January 2023 that Calibri would replace Times New Roman on official documents to make them easier to read because “fonts like Times New Roman have serifs or decorative, angular features that can introduce accessibility issues for individuals with disabilities”. U.K.’s Home Office, for similar reasons, x-ed out the 83-year-old Times New Roman, which has the wings and feet on letters known as serif style in favor of Calibri font.

Some typeface executives say that, in fact, the serif flourish make letters easier to distinguish. They cite the identical appearance in some Calibri fonts of the lowercase “l,” as in look, and uppercase “I,” as in India.

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