Er...what is a font?
typeface or font
The difference between a font and a typeface. Is there one?
Do the words ‘font’ and ‘typeface’ mean exactly the same thing?
Font or Typeface?

One thing is clear - too many opinions and no strict regulation. :)

Great summary, Nick.

Jack Gernsheimer may make a distinction between the words logo and logotype, but he makes it clear that the distinction is of HIS making. What's the difference between a photo and a photograph?

Originally, a LIGATURE was a simple design element which tied two letters together, most commonly ct and st; a single cast piece of metal type containing the tied letters and the ligature--or simply tied letters like ff, fi fl, etc--was called a LOGOTYPE. However, with the passage of time and corruption of the language, what was called a logotype is now called a ligature, and the meaning of logotype has been reassigned.

Look up "trademark" on Wikipedia; the article is clear and concise.

a single cast piece of metal type containing the tied letters and the ligature--or simply tied letters like ff, fi fl, etc--was called a LOGOTYPE

Or untied letters--a "th" sort, for example, would also have been called a logotype (cast as one sort not because the letters are connected, but instead with the thought of saving time in composition).

So did I. But if I understood the bigwigs here correctly, it's all one big happy Weasley family.

I am a Year 1 Graphic Design student – presumably one that has not yet discovered the university library... or the power of independent thought.

You are wrong about that. I have plenty of books that were written in different periods. The thing is that books often contradict one another and I there is no way I can get to an objective conclusion.

As for "the power of independent thought" don't you think that we all should agree on commonly used terms rather than interpret them independently?

A font USED TO MEAN a certain quantity of molded type slugs that you could order from a typefounder; it was usually sold by the number of copies of the lowercase "a" that it contained. So you could buy a 6-a font or a 20-a font.

Then, this meaning became applied to things like computer files that contained the vectors with which to draw the characters of a given typeface, or to the disks or squares that contained negative images of the characters for use in a phototypesetter.

Along the way to being corrupted to be a synonym with "typeface", which to computer users made a lot of sense, since "which font are you using", if uttered with the "old" meaning of font, also implied the "corrupt" meaning... the alternate distinction of using font to mean "this typeface, this weight, this size", since those attributes were tied to a font - at least when made out of lead, if not necessarily in the case of a computer file, and usually not in the case of a phototypesetter disk.

But that meaning of "font" loses what is usually regarded as the primary element of the font/typeface distinction - a typeface is a style of lettering, and a font is the means used to utter characters in that style.

So, ideally, one would like a more specific word. IBM, when selling typewriters, refered to "typestyle" instead of "typeface", presumably in order to be less pretentious - and a single Selectric type element could only handle one weight and size of character. So one could use "typestyle" as the new, missing word here.