Stylistic sets (sometimes written as “style sets”) are groupings of [alternate](/glossary/alternates) [glyphs](/glossary/glyph) that allow the user to switch on (via [OpenType](/glossary/open_type)) sets of related alternate glyphs one at a time.

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![The ”a” and “g” characters, rendered with their default glyphs and then again in alternate glyphs contained in a different style set.](images/thumbnail.svg)

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According to the personal tastes of the [type designer](/glossary/type_designer) or [foundry](/glossary/type_foundry), each style set might contain multiple alternate glyphs—for instance a different “a,” “g,” and “z”—or the set might be limited to just one character.

If the type designer goes to the trouble of giving their stylistic sets human-readable names, they may be named according to the characters they modify (e.g. the “Arrows, triangles and circles” set in [Alegreya](https://fonts.google.com/specimen/Alegreya)) rather than the default set names (“ss01”, “ss02”, etc.).