Fat Face vs Wood Type
ファットフェイス / 木活字ディスプレイ
Both sit in Type Classification, so the question is not what they belong to but how they behave. One is style and the other technique. They are reached for with some of the same intent, which is where they get confused.
Fat Face
Advertising swelled the didone's stems to extremes. The result was the earliest display type, built to shout across the street.
Wood Type
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Gigantic letters cut from wood for broadside posters created the display vocabulary of extreme condensation, extension and ornament.
| Fat Face | Wood Type | |
|---|---|---|
| Era | c. 1803– | 1827– |
| Family | Type Classification | Type Classification |
| Kind | Style | Technique |
| Cues | Swollen stems / Hairline horizontals / Tight spacing / Poster scale | Gigantic sizes / Extreme condensing and extending / Carved ornament / Ink scuff and material grain |
| Best used for | Headlines of a single word on event posters meant to read from a distance · Posters and signs for bars or markets borrowing the tone of old broadsides | Large announcements and banners that must maximize words within a fixed sheet · Signs and menus for eating places borrowing the air of markets and shows |
| Type | One or two words filling the sheet, spaced as tight as they will go | Change face and width by line, choosing widths to fit each word |
| Composition | Justify each line to the same width and stack weights for contrast | Justify every line to the full sheet and divide bands with rules |
| Material | Cheap stock, black alone or black and red, ink scuff left showing | Firm impression showing grain, few colors, chips and wear left in |
| Caution | At small sizes the hairline horizontals disappear and the letters collapse into thick blocks that can no longer be told apart. | Multiplying faces line by line without ranking them flattens the order of emphasis, and no one can tell what to read first. |