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The stem of a lowercase letter projecting above the x-height. Ascenders and descenders are sometimes called extenders.

The stem of a lowercase letter projecting above the x-height. Ascenders and descenders are sometimes called extenders.

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Ascender

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Typography - Details

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The stem of a lowercase letter projecting above the x-height. Ascenders and descenders are sometimes called extenders.

Ascender

The imaginary line upon which a line of text rests.

Baseline

The generally round or elliptical forms which are the basic body shape of letters such as C, G, 0 in the uppercase, and b, c, e, o, p in the lowercase. Also called eye.

Bowl

A curved connection between the stem and serif of some fonts. Not all serifs are bracketed serifs. This is also referred to as a fillet. The term bracket is, however, readily understood in the sense of its meaning as a support.

Bracket

The distance from baseline to cap line of an alphabet, which is the approximate height of the uppercase letters. It is often less, but sometimes greater, than the height of the ascending lowercase letters.

Cap Height

The white space enclosed by a letterform, whether wholly enclosed, as in d or o, or partially, as in c or m.

Counter

The stem of a lowercase letter projecting below the x-height.

Descender

The stroke attached to the bowl of the lowercase g. Some typographers use the same term for the lowercase r.

Ear

The stroke connecting the bowl and the loop of the lowercase g.

Link

Lowercase characters are the non-capital letters of the alphabet. They make up the bulk of written text, with uppercase or capital letters used primarily only to start sentences or proper names. The term lowercase is derived from the days of metal type where the more frequently used letters were kept near at hand in the lower case while the less frequently used capital letters were kept in the harder to reach upper case.

Lowercase

The height of the face of the type, which in letterpress terms is the depth of the body of the type. Originally, this was the height of the face of the metal block on which each individual letter was cast. The distance from the top of the highest ascender to the bottom of the lowest descender is measured in points. Book/newspaper text is normally 8 to 10 point or subheadings/intros may be 12 to 18 point; headings may be 20 to 36 point; footnotes/captions/credits may be 6 to 7 point. As you might then assume, typefaces set at the same point size may well appear very different given that ascender & descender lengths vary greatly from typeface to typeface.

Point Size or Type Size

The beginning or terminal stroke drawn at right angle or obliquely across the arm, stem, or tail of a letter.

Serif

A main stroke that is more or less straight, not part of a bowl.

Stem

Any stroke which does not terminate in a serif is a terminal. By definition all sans-serif typefaces have terminals, and serif typefaces often have them as well.

Terminal

Uppercase characters are the capital letters of the alphabet. Uppercase letters are normally used at the beginning of sentences and as the first letter of proper names. The term uppercase is derived from the days of metal type where the lesser used capital letters were kept in the harder to reach upper case while the more frequently used letters were kept nearer at hand, in the lower case.

Uppercase or All caps

The distance between the baseline and the midline of an alphabet, which is normally the approximate height of the unextended lowercase letters — a, c, e, m, n, o, r, s, u, v, w, x, z - and of the torso of b, d, h, k, p, q, y. The relation of x-height to cap height, and the relation of x-height to length of extenders, are two important characteristics of Latin typeface.

X-Height

Serif , Sans-Serif , Slab Serif ,Script , Display , Symbol

Type classification

Serif fonts have small decorative strokes that are added to the end of a letter's main strokes and are called serifs. Serifs were developed on Roman inscriptional capitals to improve elegance and legibility. They were actually painted on the stone with a brush and then carved. Serifs survive in modern typography because of their beauty and classical associations, and because they help your eye read text more easily. Some are subtle and others may be quite pronounced and obvious.

Serif

Old Style (slanted serifs), Transitional (also slanted serifs), Modern (thin + horizontal serifs), Slab Serif (thick serifs).

Serif fonts 4 main classifications

The word ”sans” means “without” in French, so sans-serif typefaces are those without serifs on the ends of the strokes. Sans-serif typefaces are almost always “mono weight” meaning there is virtually no visible thick/thin transition in the strokes; the letter forms are the same thickness all the way round. The first sans-serifs were issued in Britain in 1816. The first of these typefaces were considered awkward and unappealing since they lack the traditional serif. Therefore, they were called Grotesque. A hundred years later, in the 1920's, they were again in demand by the Bauhaus movement and are still very popular in current day design.

Sans-Serif

Grotesque, Neo-Grotesque, Geometric, Humanist, and Informal.

Sans-serif 5 main classifications

A slab serif (also called square serif or Egyptian) typeface is a type of serif typeface characterised by thick, block-like serifs. Slab serif typefaces generally have no bracket (feature connecting the strokes to the serifs). Because of their bold appearance, they are most commonly used in large headlines and advertisements but are seldom used in body text. The name "Egyptian" is derived from their use in a publication about treasure from Napoleon's Egyptian campaign. Some consider slab serifs to be a subset of modern serif typefaces.

Slab Serif

Since a Parisian printer created the first in 1643, script typefaces have become almost as numerous as the handwriting instruments—brush, broad-edged pen or pointed pen—that they were designed to imitate. Script typefaces often mimic handwriting techniques by joining letters with connecting lines. Scripts should be used sparingly and only when appropriate to a particular design job. Italics, especially those in a serif font family also take on the appearance of a script font. Scripts should never be set as long blocks of text and never as uppercase/all caps. But they can be particularly stunning when set very large or used as a decorative graphic or line work.

Script

Display or decorative typefaces usually have some very specific styling that convey a particular mood or tone. They may recall some period design attributes, or some special cultural aspects of a time or place. Because such stylings may require the typeface design to move away from the standards that readers expect for lengthy texts, display faces are best used in short texts such as headlines, sub headings, signage, on labels or in logo design. When using display faces, it's important to select a text typeface that works well with the display face.

Display

Symbol typefaces have been created for a variety of non-text uses such as musical notation, map making, mathematics, forms, commercial publishing and desktop publishing. These fonts can put the finishing touch on a project, help with specialised tasks or designed for fun, comical situations. Sometimes these typefaces are referred to as ornaments. Ornaments can sometimes be appropriate for inclusion in type packages — both to enhance the qualities of a particular era, but also to help ‘block out’ a type package.

Symbol

The x-height of a typeface refers to the height of the lower-case x in that typeface. Typefaces with a very large x-height typically have shorter ascenders and descenders and thus less white space between lines of type. Increased leading can assist with readability of these typefaces as it allows for clearer identification of those ascenders and descenders. In typefaces with small x-heights, the ascenders and descenders often become more visually noticeable. It is for this reason that serif typefaces are typically used in longer texts, e.g. novels, as our eyes—and brain—seek out identifiable parts of letters to understand them, rather than taking in every aspect of every character.

X-Height

Leading refers to the horizontal space between lines of type—in your previous, non-designer lives you might have referred to this as line spacing. Many digital designers will use the term line height, seeing that this is the term used when coding in languages like html. For body copy, a comfortable amount of leading is usually 2–3pt sizes larger than the character size in use. When using all caps, leading sizes around the same as the type size—and sometimes even less than the type size—can work well as there are no ascenders or descenders at risk of clashing.

Leading

Tracking refers to the amount of space between letters across a line of text. In digital design, this is called letter or character spacing.

Tracking

Kerning is the space between individual pairs of letters. Type larger than 14pt should have its kerning addressed. It won’t always need to be fixed, but just remember you are aiming for an ‘even typographic colour’—i.e. no odd or uneven spacing between letters.

Kerning

As a part of the type design process, type designers assign kerning values (or ‘pairs’) to each possible combination of characters / glyphs in a typeface set. As you can imagine, this is a huge undertaking and is one of the more time consuming parts of designing a typeface (you might notice with many free fonts that the kerning pairs are pretty awful—usually because the kerning values have been set to default in the typeface creation application). Metrics refers to the kerning pairs assigned by the type designer. For well-designed typefaces, this is a good setting to use for most text. Optical kerning adjusts the spacing between adjacent characters based on their shapes. Some fonts include robust (metrics) kern-pair specifications. However, when a font includes only minimal built-in kerning or none at all, or if you use two different typefaces or sizes in one or more words on a line, you may want to use the optical kerning option. Type tip: The differences between metrics and optical kerning values can be pretty subtle for many typefaces. It’s best to see what each option does to your type before committing one way or the other.

Metrics vs optical kerning

In typography, a ligature occurs where two or more letterforms are written or printed as a unit. Generally, ligatures replace characters that occur next to each other when they share common components. There are a few common ligatures you will come across — though it is worth noting that not all typefaces include ligature glyphs. Again, the glyphs palette will show you any ligatures that are available. The common ones — ‘fi’ and ‘fl’ — are often designed to get around what would otherwise be a ‘clash’ of letterform components. The tittle on the ‘i’, for example, can in some typefaces clash with the terminal of the lowercase ‘f’. The ligatures below are found in Garamond: Some typefaces are designed with extensive ligature options. Zuzana Licko’s ‘Mrs Eaves Just Lig’ is a prime example — it’s a subset of ‘Mrs Eaves’ which the designer can tap in to as needed to add a quirky personality, or perhaps to suggest a ‘crafted’ quality.

Ligatures

A diphthong, or a ‘gliding vowel’ is the sound made by adjacent vowels in a word. Sometimes these diphthongs are represented by a ligature-style mark made up of two otherwise separate characters. They are not all that common in English, however we do borrow a lot of words from other languages so you will come across them from time to time.

Diphthongs