What exactly is the difference between a text and a display typeface?

Abstract

What exactly is a display typeface? What is it about a display typeface that makes it unsuitable for reading a lot of text? These questions were stimulated by the paper in this issue, "Legibility Implications of Expressive Display Typefaces" by Sofie Beier, Katrine Sand, and Randi Starrfelt (see preceding article). Reviewers of that paper found that various words describe display typefaces in the literature, none of them used consistently or defined precisely. In an effort to clarify, Visible Language Editor Mike Zender initiated a discussion among four typographic experts around the letterform features that contribute to or define the informal distinctions of "display" and "text" typeface. The aim was to better define these informal terms and choose more accurate and appropriate words than "display" and "text."The experts concluded that a display typeface departs more from the basic letterform skeleton, those most basic stroke distinctions that define an "a" from a "b" (see Sofie Beier's figure 4). Because typographers intuitively understand that letterforms which embellish or distort the basic skeleton are less legible, they tend to use display typefaces at larger sizes. The discourse that led to these conclusions is summarized below. Note that some of the words discussed are no longer in Sofie Beier's paper published in this journal, as the authors responded the discussion about terminology. In this discourse summary, Z. is the voice of Mike Zender (VL Editor); B. is Chuck Bigelow, typeface designer; D. is Mary Dyson, typographic faculty and researcher; La. is Kevin Larson, typographic researcher at Microsoft; and Lo. is Maria dos Santos Lonsdale, typographic faculty and researcher.