TYPE CLASSIFICATION

Type classification is a system that was devised in the nineteenth century, when printers sought to identify a heritage for their own craft similar to that of art history. Humanist letterforms are closely connected to calligraphy and the movement of the hand. Transitional and modern typefaces are more abstract and less organic. The three main groups correspond roughly to the Renaissance, Baroque, and Enlightenment periods in art and literature. Designers in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries have continued to create new typefaces based on historic characteristics.

Sans Serif- Font that loses the serif. First appeared broadly in the mid-nineteenth century with the introduction of typefaces carved from wood. The increased production of sans serifs in all widths and sizes remains today, as sans serifs prove to be quite malleable.
Examples: Akzidenz Grotesk, Futura, Franklin Gothic

Script- The typographic form of handwriting. Script typefaces strive to translate the inherently dynamic, fluid, and imperfect act of writing into metal, wood, photo, and digital typefaces, amounting to and inordinate amount of choices in a dizzying number of approaches.
Examples: Brush Script, Choc, Mistral

Monospace- Monospace typefaces take their cue from typewriters, where all letters conform to a specific physical width, resulting in letterforms that must expand or condense to make the best use of the allotted space- hence the wide is and tight ms. They are also referred to as nonproportional, in contrast to typical proportional typefaces, where each character is a different width.
Examples: Courier, Orator, and OCR A

Information found from Thinking with Type: Classifications and Graphic Design Referenced by Bryony Gomez-Palacio and Armin Vit.