Slab Serif
スラブセリフ / 1815– / Style / Type Classification
Square serifs as thick as the strokes turned letters into machine structures. Industrial society's advertising and notices found their sturdy voice.
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At a glance
Visual cues
- Slab serifs
- Even strokes
- Sturdy letterforms
- Mechanical repetition
Best used for
- Logos and product marking for tools and workwear that sell durability
- Newspaper and dictionary headings that need bold type holding up at small sizes
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Dictionary entry
- Type
- Choose a family with even weight steps and mix caps with lowercase
- Composition
- Combine with rules and boxes, aligning elements to a visible grid
- Material
- It survives ink spread on paper and stamping into metal or cloth
- Caution
- A heavy slab used for long text packs the lines black and stops reading, so sturdiness turns into sheer heaviness.
- Further study
- Vincent Figgins, Antique (1815) / the Clarendon and Ionic lineage / 19th-century foundry specimens
Related entries
- Wood Type (木活字ディスプレイ)Same Type Classification lineage.Compare Slab Serif and Wood Type
- Grotesque Sans (グロテスク・サンセリフ)Same Type Classification lineage.Compare Slab Serif and Grotesque Sans
More from Type Classification
Continue through styles in the same Type Classification family, prioritised by shared effects.
- Japanese Gothic (ゴシック体)Shared effects: Trust / Technique.
- Talnemokkol (De-squared Hangul) (脱ネモ体)Shared effects: Technique / Trust.
- Roman Square Capitals (ローマン・キャピタル)Shared effects: Trust.
Browse all Type Classification entries
Cite this entry
The dictionary is meant to be linked to. Take whichever form fits where you are writing.
- Link
- https://indexstyle.org/styles/slab-serif
- Markdown
- [Slab Serif — IndexStyle](https://indexstyle.org/styles/slab-serif)
- HTML
- <a href="https://indexstyle.org/styles/slab-serif">Slab Serif — IndexStyle</a>