Typography Terms and Definitions

The Typography Terms is extremely important in design. It is the art of organizing and coordinating writings within the design by reducing and enlarging the sizes of letters or changing the spaces between letters and lines. And so on, and its purpose is to deliver a specific message in the design, whether it is written or drawn by hand or by computer. If you are wondering about the typography terms and definitions, this article will be covering all the information that you need to know :

Alternates 

These are different shapes as glyphs, typeface, swash characters and case sensitive forms as well as contextual alternates as well as others. 

Anti- aliasing

This is the blurring of the edges of the font that would be on the screen in order to make the look softer. It is mainly liked at 16 points as point size. 

Antiqua

It is a German and Scandanvian names that are set for the serif faces and they are not as the Grotesk that is referring to the sans serif face. 

Aperture

It is between the rounded negative space as the  ‘n’, ‘C’, ‘S’, the lower part of ‘e’, or it can be including the upper part of a double-storey ‘a’. 

Apex.

It is the point on the top as in letter A.

Arc

Any curved contour of a letter.

Arm

The horizontal stroke in a character that does not connect to a stem at one or both sides.

Ascender

It is any part in a lowercase letter that extends above the x-height, found for example in ‘b’, ‘d’, ‘f’, ‘h’, ‘k’, etc. Some types of ascenders have specific names.

Axis

An imaginary line drawn from top to bottom of a glyph bisecting the upper and lower strokes is the axis. 

B

Backslant

These are the characters that lean to the left, as opposed to italic or slanted characters that lean to the right.

Ball Terminal

A terminal that resolves into circular shape.

Bar

The horizontal stroke in characters such as A, H, R, e, and f.

Baseline

The imaginary line upon which the letters in a font appear to rest.

Beak

A triangular, serif-like protrusion at the end of a stroke in certain serif type designs.

Body

Originally the physical block on which each metal character sat, in digital type it is the imaginary area that encompasses each character in a font. 

Bowl

The curved part of the character that encloses the circular or curved parts (counter) of some letters such as ‘d’, ‘b’, ‘o’, ‘D’, and ‘B’.

Bracket

The bracket is a curved or wedge-like connection between the stem and serif of some fonts. Not all serifs are bracketed.

C

Cap height

The height from the baseline to the top of the uppercase letters (not including diacritics).

Case sensitive

The position of a number of punctuation marks like hyphens, brackets, slashes etc. is centered on the x-height of the lowercase letters. Fonts with case-sensitive punctuation also have slightly raised alternates of these characters that are centered on the cap height (the height of the capital).

Character

Any letter, numeral, punctuation mark, and other sign included in a font. Some characters can be represented by more than one glyph.

Contextual

Feature-rich OpenType fonts can detect certain characters or character combinations before and/or after specific characters and substitute them with alternate glyphs or ligatures according to the context.

Counter

The enclosed or partially enclosed circular or curved negative space (white space) of some letters such as d, o, and s is the counter.

Crossbar

The (usually) horizontal stroke across the middle of the uppercase ‘A’ and ‘H’.

Cross stroke

The (usually) horizontal stroke that intersects the stem of the lowercase ‘f’ and ‘t’.

Crotch

The inside of a narrow angle where two strokes in a character meet, as in V, W, Y.

D

Delta hinting

Instructions added to a TrueType font, allowing it to display nicely at any point size on screen. Delta hinting does not affect printing, nor is it available for PostScript fonts. 

Descender

Any part in a lowercase letter that extends below the baseline, found for example in g, j, p, q, y, etc. In italics, f often has a descender. The old-style numerals 3, 4, 5, 7, and 9 also have descenders.

The lower-case g, j, p, q, and y are the most common characters with descenders, but some numbers and italicized letters can have them as well. Photo credit: Fontshop.com.

Diacritics

A diacritic is an ancillary mark or sign added to a letter. Accents are one type of diacritics. In the Latin alphabet their function is to change the sound value of the letters to which they are added; in other alphabetical systems like 

Dingbats

Decorative symbols and characters that are generally not included in a font or character set, including boxes, bullets, arrows, pointers, and other characters. Often made up into their own font.

Display

A category of typefaces designed for decorative or headline use. As opposed to text typefaces, display typefaces are usually meant for larger settings.

Double-storey

A double-story ‘a’ or ‘g’ has two counters, as opposed to their single-storey variants which only have one counter.

E

Ear

Typically found on the lower case ‘g’, an ear is a finishing stroke  usually on the upper right side of the bowl.

Embedding

When the viewer of a digital document is missing the font used to create this document, the text will display incorrectly. 

EOT (Embeddable OpenType)

File format developed by Microsoft to enable TrueType and OpenType fonts to be linked to web pages for download, to ensure that the text is rendered with the font specified by the author.

EULA (End User License Agreement)

As with most software, fonts are licensed to individuals and organizations. The EULA defines the terms and provisions for use of the font software. The EULA also indicates the number of CPUs the fonts may be installed on.

Expert set

A font that contains special characters, such as small caps, fractions, ligatures, extra accents, and alternate glyphs. Because TrueType and PostScript fonts only support a limited number of glyphs, some characters that are not used as frequently come in an expert font. 

Eye

Much like a counter, the eye refers specifically to the enclosed space in a lowercase ‘e’.

F

Family

A collection of related typefaces which share common design traits and a common name. A type style means any given variant of this coordinated design and is the equivalent of a font or typeface. Super families are very extensive with a very large number of weights and widths. Type systems are collections of related type families that cross type classifications.

Feature-rich

The OpenType font format offers numerous advanced typographic features. However it is up to the type designer or foundry to decide how many and which ones to implement. Feature-rich or fully-featured OpenType fonts have a large number of those advanced functionalities built in.

Fett

The common German name for the black weight in a type family; the bold weight is called “halbfett”.

Figures

The set of arabic numerals used in typography with the Latin alphabet to represent numbers. They exist in two forms: lining figures and old-style figures. Also, any combination of the individual numerals. In book design, illustrations printed with the text are known as figures.

Finial

The curved or tapered end of a stroke that has no serif.

Flag

The horizontal stroke at the top of the numeral ‘5’.

Flourish

An ornamental stroke or combination of strokes, usually based on calligraphic writing. May be attached to a letter or other character (as in a swash letter) or serve as a separate, decorative character.

Font

A collection of letters, numbers, punctuation, and other symbols used to set text (or related) matter. Although font and typeface are often used interchangeably, font refers to the physical embodiment (whether it’s a case of metal pieces or a computer file) while typeface refers to the design (the way it looks). A font is what you use, and a typeface is what you see.

Foot

The part of a stem that rests on the baseline.

Foundry

A company that designs and/or distributes typefaces; a type manufacturer. The name originated in the days of metal type when type was made from molten lead. Many foundries sell fonts through font stores.

G

Gadzook

An embellishment that connects the letters in a ligature but is not originally part of either letter.

Glyph

Every character in a typeface, (e.g: G, $, ?, and 7), is represented by a glyph. One single type design may contain more than one glyph for each character. These are usually referred to as alternates.

Grotesk

The common German name for sans serif faces, as opposed to “Antiqua” which means serif face.

H

Hairline

The thinnest stroke in a typeface design with strokes of different width.

Halbfett

The common German name for the bold weight in a type family; the black weight is called “fett”.

Hinting

Guidelines added to a font to help it print and display more consistently at small sizes. Most fonts contain some form of hinting, ranging from very cursory to very thorough. Hinting is a very time-consuming process. Man-made hints usually are of better quality than automatically generated hints.

Hook

The curved, protruding stroke in the terminal of the lowercase ‘f’, ‘J’ and ‘j’.

Hybrid figures

An intermediary style between oldstyle figures and lining figures, hybrid figures are somewhat smaller than the capital letters and have a consistent body size, yet some parts extend slightly upwards and downwards. Hybrid figures usually are tabular.

I

Ink Trap

To avoid clogging by ink build-up, (usually sharp) interior corners are opened up so they can literally trap excess ink. Although originally ink traps were strictly functional, designers occasionally use them as a formal design trait.

Inline

Describes a typeface with white lines appearing inside the character strokes, sometimes intended to imitate carving or chiseling, as if the characters were carved in stone or wood, or to imitate engraving in metal. Inline typefaces are generally reserved for display work.

Italic

A (mostly) slanted type style which takes its basic shapes from a stylized form of handwriting, and is usually narrower than its roman counterpart. Italics are commonly used for emphasis in text. They are primarily found in serif designs, while obliques originally were associated with sans serifs.

J

Joint

The spot where a stroke joins a stem.

K

Kerning

The built-in spacing of a typeface is intended to produce an even texture in any letter combination. Certain combinations, like LT, VA or To tend to look gappy and loose with the default built-in spacing. Kerning is an additional adjustment to those problem pairs that corrects the excess or inadequate space. Well-spaced fonts need comparatively fewer kerning pairs. Fonts that are properly kerned appear evenly spaced without large open gaps of white space between any two characters.

L

Leading

Its original meaning is increasing the vertical space between lines of metal type by literally inserting lead strips. In the digital age it now means the vertical space between lines of text, from baseline to baseline. Also known as linespacing.

Leg

The down-sloping stroke on the letter ‘K’, ‘k’ and ‘R’.

Ligature

Special characters that are actually two letters combined into one. In cases where two adjacent characters would normally bump into each other, a ligature allows the letters to flow together more gracefully. This usually makes word shapes more aesthetically pleasing. Some common ligatures are ‘fi’, ‘fl’, ‘ff’, ‘ffl’, etc.

Linespacing

The vertical space between lines of text, measured from baseline to baseline.

Lining figures (LF)

Numbers that rest on the baseline, and are usually the same height as capital letters. Lining figures can be tabular or proportional.

Link

The small, usually curved connecting stroke between the upper bowl and lower loop in the double-storey ‘g’.

Loop/Lobe

In a double-storey ‘g’, the loop is the enclosed or partially enclosed counter below the baseline that is connected to the bowl by a link. The enclosed or partially enclosed extenders on cursive ‘p’, ‘b’, ‘l’, and similar letters are also called loops.

Lowercase

The small letters in a typeface. The name refers to the days of metal type, as the small letters were kept in the lower part of the type case.

M

Master size

Traditionally, the size of a typeface from which other sizes are generated. With most digital type, one master is used by the composing system and software to generate all type sizes. 

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