Terminal: The end of a stroke that lacks a serif (Typedia).Shoulder: A curved stroke originating from a stem (Typedia).Bowl: A curved stroke that encloses a letter’s counter (Typedia).Counter: Fully or partially enclosed space within a letter (Typedia).Crossbar: A horizontal stroke (Typedia).Stem: Primary vertical stroke (Typedia).Serif: “Feet” or non-structural details at the ends of some strokes (Typedia).Without overhang, rounded letters would look smaller than their flat-footed compatriots (Thinking with Type). If a typeface was not positioned this way, it would appear to teeter precariously. Commas and semicolons also cross the baseline. Overhang: The curves at the bottom of letters hang slightly below the baseline.Descender Height: The length of a letter’s descenders contributes to its overall style and attitude (Thinking with Type).Ascender Height: Some elements may extend slightly above the cap height (Thinking with Type).This is the most stable axis along a line of text, and it is a crucial edge for aligning text with images or other text (Thinking with Type). X-Height: The height of the main body of the lowercase letter (or the height of a lowercase x), excluding its ascenders and descenders (Thinking with Type).Cap Height: The distance from the baseline to the top of the capital letter determines the letter’s point size (Thinking with Type).The areas of the letter that are highlighted and numbered correlate directly with the numbered list below it. These are excellent resources for getting an in-depth view of specific typefaces, as well as general typographic terms and history. Today we will be pulling a lot of the terms and definitions from a couple websites such as Typedia and Thinking with Type. Some of these terms will also come into play in future Typography 101 installments, so becoming familiar with them will definitely be helpful. ( View Part 1: Leading, Tracking, & Kerning) While some of this may be kind of on the dry side, it is still important to learn some of the basic terms behind the anatomy of letters. In our second installment of Typography 101, we are going to talk about the actual anatomy and structure of individual letterforms.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |