Set capital “F” next to capital “E” and the relationship is obvious: same stem, same top arm, same middle arm, just missing the bottom stroke entirely. That’s not a coincidence or a loose visual similarity — the two letters share almost the exact same ancestry, right up until one branch of their family tree simply dropped a stroke and never picked it back up.

A Short History of “F”

“F” traces back to the Phoenician letter waw, the same ancestral letter behind “u,” “v,” and eventually “w,” representing a sound closer to “w” than the “f” sound we associate with the letter today. That single Phoenician letter split into multiple descendants as it moved through different alphabets, and “F” branched off earliest and most distinctly among them.

Here Are Some Fonts You Might Love! 👀

The Greeks adopted a version of the letter as digamma, used for a “w”-like sound, but Greek eventually dropped it from everyday use as the language’s phonetic needs shifted. The Etruscans, however, kept a version of the letter alive and repurposed it for an “f” sound instead, and the Romans borrowed that Etruscan usage directly, which is how Latin ended up with “F” representing the sound it still does in English today.

Roman capital “F” settled into a shape strikingly close to capital “E,” minus the bottom horizontal stroke — likely not a coincidence, since both letters share deep structural roots in similar vertical-stem-plus-horizontal-arm letterforms from earlier in the alphabet’s development. This close visual relationship between “E” and “F” has remained stable for roughly two thousand years, making them one of the more obviously related letter pairs in the entire Latin alphabet.

Anatomy of an Uppercase “F”

Uppercase “F” is built from a vertical stem with two horizontal arms branching off — one at the top and one in the middle, at roughly the same height as the middle arm in “E.” Structurally, it’s essentially “E” with the bottom arm removed entirely, leaving an open, asymmetrical shape rather than a fully enclosed or balanced one.

Because “F” lacks a bottom stroke, it reads as visually top-heavy compared to most other capital letters, and type designers have to compensate carefully to keep it from feeling unstable or ungrounded within a line of text. The middle arm’s exact length and position matter enormously here, more so than in “E,” since there’s no bottom stroke to help balance the letter’s overall visual weight — the middle arm alone has to do that balancing work.

The top and middle arms also need to stay consistent in length and weight with the corresponding arms in “E,” since the two letters are drawn so closely from the same underlying structure that any noticeable mismatch between them becomes obvious the moment they appear near each other in real words.

Designing the Letter From Scratch

Type designers virtually always draw “F” directly after finishing “E,” since the stem width and both horizontal arms can largely be reused from that letter, with only the bottom arm removed. This makes “F” one of the more efficient letters to produce in terms of raw design effort, though the removal of the bottom stroke actually introduces its own distinct challenge: without that third horizontal element, the letter’s proportions need to be re-evaluated rather than simply copied wholesale from “E.”

The middle arm often gets a small independent adjustment once it’s isolated in “F,” since a middle arm length that felt correctly balanced sitting between a top and bottom arm in “E” can look slightly different once the bottom arm disappears and the letter’s overall visual weight shifts upward. Designers test this specifically in running text, checking words like “of,” “for,” and “if” to make sure the letter doesn’t feel top-heavy or awkwardly hollow at the bottom once set alongside its neighbors.

Because “F” shares its silhouette so closely with “E,” designers frequently keep both letters open side by side throughout the design process, making adjustments to one and immediately checking the effect on the other to preserve their obvious family resemblance.

Unique Facts About “F”

“F” and “E” are one of the most visually related letter pairs in the entire capital alphabet, sharing nearly identical top structures while differing only in the presence or absence of a single stroke — a relationship rare enough among capitals to make the pair a common reference point in type design education.

Because “F” lacks a bottom arm, it’s one of a small number of capital letters that doesn’t fully enclose or anchor to the baseline the way most other letters do, giving it a visually lighter, more open character compared to more grounded letters like “E,” “H,” or “L.”

“F” also shares its more distant ancestral roots with “U,” “V,” and “W,” the same tangled Phoenician family tree covered earlier in this series when discussing lowercase “f,” “u,” “v,” and “w” — making “F” one of the more genealogically complicated letters in the alphabet despite its visually simple, minimal shape.

“F” in Popular Fonts

In Garamond and other old-style serifs, “F” carries visible calligraphic stress across both arms, finished with small serifs that echo the broad-nib pen traditions found throughout the rest of the typeface, and closely matched to the corresponding arms in “E.” Helvetica keeps both arms crisp, evenly weighted, and mechanically precise, contributing to its clean, tightly controlled character. Futura simplifies the arms into pure geometric rectangles, consistent with its compass-and-ruler design philosophy throughout the rest of the typeface.

In script and display fonts, “F” occasionally receives a decorative flourish on its top arm, though like “E,” it tends to stay fairly restrained compared to rounder capitals, since its straight, structural geometry offers fewer natural opportunities for elaborate ornamentation.

Summary

Uppercase “F” is essentially capital “E” missing a single stroke, a relationship so close that the two letters are almost always designed and refined together rather than independently. That missing bottom arm gives “F” a distinctly lighter, more open character than its close relative, while still carrying forward the same deep structural history that ties it back to “E,” and more distantly, to “U,” “V,” and “W.”

Here Are Some Fonts You Might Love! 👀