Naming Weights

Eris Alar
Eris Alar Posts: 454
in Technique and Theory
**This issue has probably been talked about to death, and if it has, please point me to the relevant discussions.**

It seems to me that naming weights in a typeface is largely subjective and often applied inconsistently. Sometimes even by the same foundry or designer. For example, here is a list of 'black' fonts that are all part of larger families I quickly complied (sorry it's not an exhaustive list) and it quickly becomes apparently that what 'black' means varies.

http://myfonts.us/td-qF5KcR

Is there a more consistent way to name weights?

Would there be value in a more universal weight-naming system?

What am I missing?

Comments

  • Christoph Koeberlin
    Christoph Koeberlin Posts: 51
    “Sorry, this album is not public.”
  • Stephen Coles
    Stephen Coles Posts: 1,007
    edited June 2014
    Would there be value in a more universal weight-naming system?
    Do you mean assigning a precise weight value to a given name? I don’t think that would be realistic given the variance of perceptual and relative weight in different classifications, and the fact that families have different granularities and ranges of weights depending on their purpose. It’s an interesting idea, (it would make it easier to pair type from unrelated families), but it’s impractical. See this thread.

    There is a general standard for the relative order of weight names. Something like this:

    Ultra Light / Hair
    Extra Light / Thin
    Light
    Semi Light / Demi Light
    Regular / Normal / Roman / Standard [no weight name]
    Medium
    Demibold / Semibold
    Heavy
    Bold
    Extra Bold
    Ultra Bold / Black
    Extra Black
    Ultra / Ultra Black

    Two names which are not given a consistent place in this order are “Book” and “Heavy” which is why I recommend that font makers avoid those names.
  • Dave Crossland
    Dave Crossland Posts: 1,429
    I have been using this for Google Fonts (with CSS weight mapping) although if people used other names I generally didn't change them.

    100 Thin
    200 ExtraLight
    300 Light
    400 Regular
    500 Medium
    600 Semibold
    700 Bold
    800 Extra Bold
    900 Black
  • [Deleted User]
    [Deleted User] Posts: 0
    The user and all related content has been deleted.
  • Ben Blom
    Ben Blom Posts: 250
    edited June 2014
    For weight names, I always use this subset of James' list:
    Thin
    Light
    Regular
    Medium
    Demi
    Bold
    Heavy
    Black

    In a style link context, weight style links cover all these weights except the lightest and heaviest. They look like this:
    Light + [Bold style link] = Demi
    (Regular) + [Bold style link] = Bold
    Medium + [Bold style link] = Heavy

    I avoid long weight names, because of the font name length limitation in some contexts. The shorter the weight name, the better. Also, I avoid "Extra" as part of a weight name, because I might use that for another part of a font name.
  • Craig Eliason
    Craig Eliason Posts: 1,436
    @stephen coles Is Bold really usually bolder than Heavy? They are the reverse in my mind.
  • [Deleted User]
    [Deleted User] Posts: 0
    The user and all related content has been deleted.
  • Mark Simonson
    Mark Simonson Posts: 1,734
    The only family I can think of with a Bold bolder than Heavy is Futura. It has always seemed like an anomaly to me.
  • Eris Alar
    Eris Alar Posts: 454
    Sorry - MyFonts album now public.

    @Stephen Coles‌ Yes I see it being impractical, and would probably only really work for monoline (or close to monoline) families, as it becomes complicated to decide which part of the character to base the weight-name one, especially if you are using a numbered system and aiming for consistency.

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