Wednesday, 7 October 2015

Typographical Terms

Baseline: the imaginary line which the letters in a font appear to rest

Cap height: the height from the baseline to the top of the uppercase letters (not including diacritics) 

X-Height: The height of the lowercase letters, disregarding ascenders of descenders, typically exemplified by the letter X 

Copy: a large body of text 

Bracket: A curved or wedge like connection between the stem and serif of some fonts

Terminal: The end of any stroke that doesn't have a stroke

Roman: original or base typeface

Bowl: enclosed space e.g. in the 'b'

Italic: Totally redesigned, slanted font. Usually serif

Oblique: Skewed and slanted letterform; reflected original design. Usually sans serif

Descender/Ascender: Part of a letter that extends below or above the baseline of x-height

Superscript: A letter, figure or symbol placed above the normal line of height

Subscript: Below normal line of type 

Strikethrough: Used to signify mistake or recently deleted information. Current trend to misuse

Counter: Enclosed or partly enclosed circular or curved negative space

Eye: Specific to lowercase e

Aperture: Partially enclosed, somewhat rounded negative space in some characters. Upper part of double storey 'a'

Crossbar: 'A, 'H' line joining

Ear: e.g. the line on the top storey of a serif G

Link/Neck: Line joining storeys of a serif G

Colophon: Typographic and/or production specs

Ligature: Connected letters 






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