A few years ago, I started teaching type design and it made me come up with a definition of ‹typeface›. I can tell students that a typeface is a set of outlines defined by Cartesian coordinates and stored in a SFNT wrapper within a binary file. Technically that is correct, but it’s like defining food with a list of chemical compounds.

A more complex way to look at it is: why do graphic designers pick ‹Geometric Sans Serif Designed For Use In Text Sizes 1› instead of ‹Geometric Sans Serif Designed For Use In Text Sizes 2›? They probably perform the technical task of setting text in a given context equally well. They just look different. Designers pick one over the other because one conveys the feeling of the text more accurately than the other.

So, my new definition is: ‹typefaces are emotions encapsulated in an alphanumeric representation.› That has led me to be less interested in the visual styles that typefaces can take and more interested in what feelings they can bring to certain contexts. I have a list of emotions and contexts that I want to design something for. It’s a fun challenge.

Tal Leming.