There are a number of different thoughts, where serifs originated from. One
of the most agreed upon is the explanation proposed by the Roman
Catholic priest, teacher and calligrapher Father Edward M. Catich in his 1968
book „The Origin of the Serif“ which says that serifs originated in ancient
Roman inscriptions. Chiseling letters into stone created brush marks which
flared at stroke ends and corners, thus creating serifs. The term itself,
however, most likely comes from the Dutch word schreef meaning stroke.
There՚s been a long and ongoing debate about whether or not the use of
serif fonts increases the readability of a text. While this holds true for most
Antiqua fonts, when printed – legibility tests showed that readers perceived
such texts five times as quick as sans-serif print – for screen design sans-
serif types such as Verdana are preferred. However, with increasing screen
resolutions and methods such as anti-aliasing, font hinting and subpixel
rendering serif fonts can also be properly displayed and read on screen
today, if they are not too small. The former rule of thumb that sans-serif
fonts are the better choice for screen design is more or less obsolete thanks
to evolving technology standards.
Slab Serif
Egyptian or Egyptienne is another name for this class of type, which has
been developed in the early 19th century. Slab serifs are basically bolded
Antiqua typefaces, however, with much more distinct serifs. In the early
days of industrialization the slab serifs where used for the upcoming
advertising business on flyers and posters, where they made a bigger
impression than the less bold and less expressive serif types. The term
Egyptian is said to stem from the contemporary interest in anything
ancient, especially Egyptian, due to the Napoleonic discoveries in Egypt at
that time.