When a mapmaker or cartographer places a town name on a map, he can control the way the words appear to the reader in several ways. One is by the choice of font, also called typeface. The other ways of making place names differ are through style, color hue of the text and arrangement. Mapmakers have lots of choices, but basically fonts are lumped into two groups: serif (meaning strokes with semi-structural details) and non-serif. Courier New, Times New Roman and Palatino Linotype are some choices for serif fonts, while the sans-serif fonts include Ariel, Tahoma and Verdana.
Simply deciding on a particular font to use isn't enough, for more often than not different types of typefaces are applied to different kinds of names. For example, a map of Europe might contain names of countries, capitols, cities, towns, rivers, lakes and salt water entities. These elements can be distinguished by assigning each place name a particular lettering font. For example, the countries might receive one style of serif font and oceans and seas could receive a second serif font. Choosing any two of Courier New, Times New Roman and Palatino Linotype would work. Then all the other names would receive one of the three styles of sans-serif fonts. After you choose the fonts, you can adjust the other variables to complete the hierarchy of fonts.
Marginal elements like the title, scale and legend also need to be assigned different typefaces. In most cases choosing a sans-serif font and then using the other elements of lettering to further differentiate these sections is the way to go. Obviously, the title will be larger and may involve bold letters. In general, sans-serif fonts are used in these places because they work better when used with short linear phrases. Moreover, if any block of text or paragraphs are to be used, then serif letters might be the first choice.
Antique-style maps aren't a necessity, but on occasion an innovative cartographer may want to borrow from the lettering styles of the past. A skilled letterer may be able to accomplish this just by study and imitation. Other mapmakers can actually purchase and download antique fonts with such colorful names as Buccaneer, Platthand and Walsingham. For example, you could use the Platthand font as the title, while using the Buccaneer and Walsingham fonts respectively for landform and town names.
