Definitions

Definitions:

Baseline: The imaginary line where the characters sit on

Beardline: is the descender height, where the bottoms of the descenders are

Capline: the imaginary horizontal line that runs across the tops of the uppercase letters.

X-height: the height of the lowercase x, which defines the height of the lower case letters.

Alignment: Position of text within the page margins

Apex: the point created by joining to diagonal stems at the top of a letter

Arm: short strokes off the stem of the letterform

Ascender: part of the lowercase letter that is taller than the x-height.

Bowl: the rounded form that describes a counter. The bowl may be either open or closed.

Counter: anatomy that is entirely or partially enclosed by a letterform or a symbol

Crossbar: the horizontal stroke in a letterform that joins two stems together

Descender: part of the lowercase letter that goes below the baseline of the other lowercase letters.

Ear: the stroke extending out from the main stem or body of the letterform

Eye: enclosed space in a lowercase “e”

Grid: structure made up of a series of intersecting straight or curved guidelines,

Hairline:  Is the thinnest stroke found in specific typefaces that consist of strokes of varying widths.

Leg: short strokes off the stem of the letterform, either at the bottom of the stroke or inclined downward

Link: the stroke that connects the bowl and the loop of a lowercase g

Serif: strokes that are added at the end of a letter’s main strokes.

Shoulder: the curved stroke that is not part of a bowl

Spine: the curved stem of the S

Spur: the extension that articulates the junction of a curved and rectilinear stroke

Stern: the significant vertical or oblique stroke

Stroke: any line that defines the basic letterform

Tail: the curved or diagonal stroke at the finish of certain letterforms

Terminal: the self-contained finish of a stroke without a serif.

Capitals: Larger letters compared to lowercase letter, usually used at the beginning of sentence,

name, etc.

Lowercase: smaller letters compared to uppercase

Small caps: uppercase letters at the x-height of the typeface

Lining figures: modern style of numerals where all figures are the same height and the rest on the baseline

Old style figures: Style of Arabic numerals where the characters appear at different positions and heights.

Monospace: every character takes up the same amount of horizontal space.

Line-length: distance between the left and right edges of a text block.

Ligatures: Two or more letters tied together into a single letter.

Serifs: A type that has a serif extended on the letter’s ends

Weight: Darkness of the characters in typefaces within a type family (i.e. thin, light, bold, black, etc.)

Width: Variations of type, such as extended or condensed.

Posture: angle at which a given typeface is set

Stress: the orientation of the letterform, indicated by the thin stroke in round forms

Font: Weight width and style of a typeface.

Type family: multiple types that are designed together and used together.

Slab serif: Square serif that is larger or bolder than serifs of previous typefaces.

Justification: Alignment of the tops, bottom, sides, and middle of text or graphics to both the left and right margins,

Tracking: Space between characters in a block of text.

Kerning: Space between individual characters in a line of text.

Postscript: It contains fonts for a screen and the printer. They allow for high-resolution printing.

Open type: Screen and printer font is contained in a single file, compatible with Windows and

Mac.

Points: a unit of measure where approximately 72 points to an inch.          

Picas A unit of measure that is approximately 1/6^th of an inch. (equal to 12 points)

Rivers: gaps in typesetting that run through a paragraph of text due to coincidental alignment of spaces

Dingbats Typefaces that consist of symbol characters such as decorations, arrows, and bullets.

Typeface Letters, numbers, and symbols that make up a design of type.

Widows: paragraph ending line that falls at the beginning of the following page/column

Orphans: a paragraph opening line that appears by itself at the bottom of a page/column

Sources: Adobe ,John Kane  A Type Primer, Typography Deconstructed