Typography Terms Parts & Categories of Type

Typography TermsParts & Categories of Type

All of the following terms describe parts of a font that give the eye visual clues to decoding the letters while reading. Many of these terms stem from a time when type was hand-written using wedge-tipped pens.

X-height • Refers to the height of the lowercase letters.

Baseline • Imaginary horizontal line on which characters rest.

Cap Height • Distance between the baseline and top of the capital letters.

Ascenders Parts of the letters that extend above the x-height.

Descenders Parts of fonts that extend below the baseline.

Weight • Is the thickness of line in the font.

Pitch • The number of characters that can be printed in one horizontal inch.

Point Size • Point Size: l/72 of an inch. 72 points are equal to one inch

Serifs Are the flares at the end of the letters

Serif Fonts • Examples of Serif Fonts • Times New Roman • Garamond

Sans Serif • Without small strokes at the end of characters. • Examples of Sans Serif Fonts: • Arial • Tahoma • Antique Olive

Typeface Font Styles • A set of characters with a common design and shape. • Such as • Impact, Times New Roman, Arial

Typestyle • 4 categories of styles • Normal (regular, roman) • Bold • Italic • Bold italic

Drop Cap • Decorative first letter of paragraph or sentence used to draw the reader’s eye. • Usually used in a newsletter or article at the beginning of text.

Tracking • Which refers to the horizontal spacing between letters or characters.

Leading • Refers to the amount of added vertical spacing between lines of type. In consumer-oriented word processing software, this concept is usually referred to as "line spacing".

Parts & Categories of type 6 Categories into which most type can be placed.

1. Oldstyle • fonts with serifs. • The serifs are always slanted on lowercase letters. • These fonts make good body text. • They are easy to read and hard to distinguish from each other. • Example: Goudy Old Style, Centaur

2. Modern • Fonts have serifs that are thin & flat on lowercase letters. • These fonts are very good for headlines. • Example is Bodoni

3. Slab Serif • fonts have little or no thick/thin transition at all. • Called Monoweight fonts. • Serifs are thick & horizontal • These fonts are dark and extremely easy to read. • Used for body text. • Example: toxica

4. Sans Serif • Monoweight fonts • The word “sans” means without. • Fonts without serifs. • Example: Delicious, Franklin Gothic, Arial, Trebuchet MS

5. Script • Fonts appear to have been hand written. • Usually used to add style to a design. • Not for body text.

6. Decorative • Fonts are ornamentals. • Never used as body text. • Often include symbols or flairs • Use them carefully.

Typography Terms Parts & Categories of Type