While a typeface refers to its design concept, a typeface (or font) family is the collection of styles derived from that design.

Each style has their own specificities (weight, width, contrast, slope, etc.), while retaining common characteristics—making them part of the same family.

A family usually contains a limited number of styles along the weight axis, including their matching italics. When it spans a wide range of styles, across multiple axes, it is often referred to as a superfamily. These large families are often grouped into subfamilies to organize styles more clearly in the font menus of text editor softwares.