Baseline
The imaginary
line on which the majority of the characters in a typeface rest.
Beardline
an imaginary line tha truns along the bottoms of the
descenders
Capline
an imaginary line that runs along the tops of the capital
letters
X-height
Commonly considered to be the height the a lowercase letter
x within a given typeface or font. Used to define the relationship between the
visual height of the lowercase letters and the visual height of the uppercase
letters. Generally speaking, when comparing two different typefaces at the same
point size, the x-heights of those typefaces will be different.
Alignment
The
positioning of text within the page margins. Alignment can be flush left, flush
right, justified, or centered. Flush left and flush right are sometimes
referred to as left justified and right justified.
Apex
the peak of the triangle of an uppercase A
Arm
a projecting horizontal stroke that is unattached on one or
both ends, as in the letters T and E
Ascender
The part of
lowercase letters (such as k, b, and d) that ascends above the x-height of the
other lowercase letters in a face.
Bowl
a curved stroke enclosing the counterform of a letter. An
exception is the bottom form of the lowercase roman g, which is called a loop
Counter
the negative space that is fully or partially enclosed by a letterform
Crossbar
the horizontal stroke connecting two sides of a letterform
or bisecting the main stroke
Descender
The part of
lowercase letters (such as y, p, and q) that descends below the baseline of the
other lowercase letters in a font face. In some typefaces, the uppercase J and
Q also descend below the baseline.
Ear
a small stroke that projects from the upper right side of
the bowl of the lowercase roman g
Eye
the enclosed part of the lowercase e
Grid
is a structure (usually two-dimensional) made up of a series
of intersecting straight (vertical, horizontal, and angular) or curved guide
lines used to structure content. The grid serves as an armature on which a
designer can organize graphic elements (images, glyphs, paragraphs) in a
rational, easy to absorb manner. A grid can be used to organize graphic elements
in relation to a page, in relation to other graphic elements on the page, or
relation to other parts of the same graphic element or shape.
Hairline
the thinnest stroke within a typeface that has strokes of
varying weights
Leg
the lower diagonal stroke on the letter k
Link
the stroke that connects the bowl and the loop of a
lowercase roman g
Serif
short strokes that extend from and at an angle to the upper
and lower ends of the major strokes of a letterform
Shoulder
a curved stroke projecting from a stem
Spine
the central curved stroke of the letter S
Spur
a projection -- smaller than a serif -- that reinforces the
point at the end of a curved stroke, as in the letter G
Stem
a major vertical or diagonal stroke in the letterform
Stroke
any of the linear elements within a letterform; originally,
any mark or dash made by the movement of a pen or brush in writing
Tail
a diagonal stroke or loop at the end of a letter
Terminal
the end of any stroke that does not terminate with a serif
Capitals
the set of large letters that is used in the initial
position
Lowercase
the smaller set of letters, so named because in metal
typesetting there were stored in the lower part of a type case
Small caps
a complete set of capital letters that are the same height
as the x-height of the lowercase letters. these are often used from
abbreviations, cross references, and emphasis
Lining figures
numbers that are the same height as the capital letters and
sit on the baseline
Old style figures
a set of numbers that are compatible with lowercase letters;
1, 2, and O align with the x-height; 6 and 8 have ascenders; and 3, 4, 5, 7,
and 9 have descenders
Monospace
is one in which every character takes up the same amount of
horizontal space. In this example each character takes up an amount of space
that is proportional to the width of the character. So M takes up more space
than I.
Line-length
is the distance between the left and right edges of a text
block. Overly long lines are a very common problem. But they’re easy to
correct. Shorter lines will make a big difference in the legibility and
professionalism of your layout.
Ligatures
two or more characters linked together as one unit, such as
ff. the ampersand is a ligature originating as a letter combination for the
French word et ("and") in medieval manuscripts
Serifs
Small
decorative strokes that are added to the end of a letter's main strokes. Serifs
improve readability by leading the eye along the line of type.
Weight
The relative
darkness of the characters in the various typefaces within a type family.
Weight is indicated by relative terms such as thin, light, bold, extra-bold,
and black.
Width
One of the
possible variations of a typeface within a type family, such as condensed or
extended.
Posture
Posture is how the font is slanted on the paper. Posture is
changed when the font is italicized.
Stress
The diagonal, vertical, or horizontal thick-to-thin
transition in the stroke of a letter is the stress. Draw a line through the
thinnest points of the letter o and you can easily see the angle of
stress. A typeface with uniform strokes
has no obvious stress.
Font
The complete set of characters for one typeface at one
particular type size, excluding attributes such as bold or italic. In modern
usage, the term "font" is often confused with "typeface"
and "family." Traditionally, the term "font" represents a
complete set of characters (including all the letters of the alphabet,
punctuation, and symbols), which share the same typeface, style, and size. For
example, 12 point Goudy Oldstyle Bold is a font. Fonts can be as small as the
basic alphabet or up to hundreds of characters. Some languages, like Japanese,
can exceed these numbers, which make them more difficult to access from the
standard keyboard. Derived from the word "found" as in type foundry.
Type family
Complete set of related typefaces having identical design
characteristics, such as Arial, Helvetica, Times Roman out of tens of thousands
of distinctive type families, each with its own name.
Slab serif
is a type of serif font that evolved from the Modern style.
The serifs are square and larger, bolder than serifs of previous typestyles.
Justification
In typesetting and page layout, alignment or range, is the
setting of text flow or image placement relative to a page, column (measure),
table cell or tab. The type alignment setting is sometimes referred to as text
alignment, text justification or type justification. The edge of a page or
column is known as a margin, and a gap between columns is known as a gutter.
Tracking
The overall letterspacing in text. Tracking can also be used
to tighten or loosen a block of type. Some programs have automatic tracking
options which can add or remove small increments of space between the
characters. (See letterspacing.)
The average
space between characters in a block of text. Sometimes also referred to as
letterspacing.
Kerning
The
adjustment of horizontal space between individual characters in a line of text.
Adjustments in kerning are especially important in large display and headline
text lines. Without kerning adjustments, many letter combinations can look
awkward. The objective of kerning is to create visually equal spaces between
all letters so that the eye can move smoothly along the text.
Kerning may be
applied automatically by the desktop publishing program based on tables of
values. Some programs also allow manual kerning to make fine adjustments.
PostScript
Adobe System's page description language. Programs like
Macromedia FreeHand and Adobe Illustrator use PostScript to create complex
pages, text, and graphics onscreen. This language is then sent to the printer
to produce high quality printed text and graphics.
Open Type
New font format developed by Adobe and Microsoft. OpenType
font can contain a set of glyphs defined as TrueType or Type 1 curves.
Points
A unit of
measure in typography. There are approximately 72 points to the inch. A pica is
12 points
Picas
A unit of
measure that is approximately 1/6th of an inch. A pica is equal to 12 points.
The traditional British and American pica is 0.166 inches. In PostScript
printers, a pica is exactly 1/6th of an inch.
Rivers
In a paragraph of text, a series of wordspaces that
accidentally align vertically or diagonally, creating an awkward flow of white
space within the column of text.
Dingbats
Typefaces that
consist of symbol characters such as decorations, arrows and bullets.
Typeface
The letters,
numbers, and symbols that make up a design of type. A typeface is often part of
a type family of coordinated designs. The individual typefaces are named after
the family and are also specified with a designation, such as italic, bold or
condensed.
Widows
A single word or
very short line of type left at the end of a paragraph or column of text
Orphans
A single word or very short line of type left at the end of
a paragraph that has moved to the top of a new column or a new page of text.
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