The TeX Directory Structure (TDS) standard, available at
(ftp://tug.org/tex/tds and CTAN:/tds)
specifies a directory tree for all TeX library files. The directory
names given in Suppliers and Typefaces are intended to mesh
with that standard.
The modes.mf file (ftp://tug.org/tex/modes.mf)
contains recommended mode names to use as directory names.
The PSfonts distribution (CTAN:/fonts/psfonts) contains
TeX support for many fonts, both commercially available and free.
The Fontinst distribution (CTAN:/fonts/utilities/psfonts)
supports quite general creation of virtual fonts, named according to the
scheme given here.
The Dvips translator (original at
ftp://labrea.stanford.edu/pub/dvips*.tar.gz and variation at
ftp://tug.org/tex/dvipsk.tar.gz) supports resident and
downloadable PostScript fonts. Dvips was the first real application of
Fontname 1. Dvips also includes Afm2tfm, another program that can
create virtual fonts.
`Designing New Typefaces with Metafont', by Richard Southall,
Stanford Computer Science Department Technical Report STAN-CS-85-1074,
September 1985, for a comprehensive terminology of font design.