![]() If you've ever typed a word in an editor and thought it looked off – the letters being either too close together or too far apart – it was probably a kerning issue. Kerning is the space between individual characters. Tracking, or letter-spacing, is the space between characters across an entire block of block of text such as a magazine article. These elements control the distance between characters and can be used to adjust legibility. One pica equals 12 points, and six picas equal one inch on a page or screen. How lines of text are measured generally. Because of this, two typefaces at the same point size may appear as different sizes, based on the position of the character in the block and how much of the block the character fills. When a character is referred to as 12pt, the full height of the text block (such as a block of movable type), and not just the character itself, is being described. The point is used to measure the size of a font. Other examples of type families include condensed bold, condensed black, ultralight, light, regular, ultralight italic, light italic, regular italic, and so on. Source: Type familiesĭifferent options for a given typeface, most of which include bold, italic, and roman at a bare minimum. For example, bold Roboto 8pt is one example of a font, while italicized Roboto 12pt is another distinct font. Common examples are Arial, Times New Roman, and Roboto.įont is a small, specific subset of a typeface, and describes how the typeface is presented. Typeface is a set of glyphs or characters – which include letters, numbers, and punctuation – that share a distinct sense of style. But in the case of typography, there is a difference, however slight. Often these terms can be used interchangeably. Describing and measuring type Typeface vs. Space refers to the white space that is found between the letters and also inside letters like o and p with closed loops.īelow are some basic definitions to help you understand how type is described and measured. ![]() These days, sans-serif is used on digital displays since they have better legibility, especially on lower resolution displays where serif terminals are hard to depict. On the other hand, sans-serif terminals do not have any of those features at the end of strokes. Terminals are the end of the strokes and can be either s erif or sa ns-s erif.Ī seriffed terminal has protrusions on the edges which can be described as a wedge, bulbous, teardrop, or slab. ![]() Loop (13): The open or closed bottom section of a double-story g in some typefaces.Tittle: The dot above characters like the one in i or j.Arm (17): The long horizontal stroke at the top or bottom of a character like in E and F.Bar: The short, horizontal stroke in letters that do not cross a vertical line like the center of e, and the middle stroke of both E and F.Leg (9): The downward diagonal stroke as in K and R.Bowl (10): A curved, closed stroke like the ones in d, b, R, D, and B. ![]() Shoulder: Sometimes called an arch, this is a curved, arching stroke like the one at the top of R, and also found in h, n, and m.D escender line (20): The imaginary line depicting the distance between the baseline and the bottom of the descender.Descender: When the stroke of a lowercase letter falls below the baseline like with g.A scender line (2): The imaginary line depicting the distance between the baseline and the top of the ascender.Ascender (5): When the stroke of a lowercase letter goes above the meanline such as with l.Crossbar (6): These are the strokes that connect two separate lines in capital letters such as A and H, or the horizontal stroke in the lowercase t.Stem (7): The main stroke in a letterform, which is often vertical or diagonal.X-height (1): The height of the lowercase x character, and represents the distance between the baseline and the meanline.Meanline: The imaginary line that marks the top of lowercase letters.Capline (19): Another imaginary line that dictates the height of all uppercase characters.Baseline (4): The imaginary line that most characters are situated on.The imaginary line on which most characters sit is known as the b aseline (4).The different parts of the stroke are given below: They may be straight, as in letters like l, z, k, v or curved like in c or o. Stroke refers to the main body of the letterform. Generally speaking, a typeface consists of 3 main parts: The figure below shows the different parts of the letters in a typeface: Source: Īccording to "Typeface anatomy", the typographic parts of a glyph are as follows: 1) x-height 2) ascender line 3) apex 4) baseline 5) ascender 6) crossbar 7) stem 8) serif 9) leg 10) bowl 11) counter 12) collar 13) loop 14) ear 15) tie 16) horizontal bar 17) arm 18) vertical bar 19) cap height 20) descender line The anatomy of letterforms describes the different elements that make up printed letters in a typeface.
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