Typography is an art of arranging design types to make written language legible, enjoyable and attractive when displayed. The arrangement generally incorporates modification of type-faces, line length, fonts, weight, kerning, etc. This blog will help you to increase your vocabulary regarding typography terms. So here are the terms listed.
Anti-Aliasing – I typography, they are semi-transparent pixels along the edges of the letterform outlines to smoothen jagged lines.
Apex – When the two strokes meet then the upper joining part of a letterform is called Apex.
Arm – A stroke that doesn’t connect to another stroke at one end or both ends.
Ascender – In lower case letters, the vertical stroke which extends vertically to x-height refers to this term.
Ascender Line – An invisible line which marks the height of all ascenders in a font.
Beak – A decorative stroke which is put at the end of the arm of letter somewhat similar with serif but not pronounced.
Bilateral Serif – Serif which extends from the main stroke.
Bracket – Curved or wedge-like connection between the serif and the stem of some fonts.
Cap Height – It is a measurement of a capital letters from its baseline.
Counter – An area which is partially or fully enclosed with the letter form like “a”, “o”, “c” etc.
Cross Stroke – The horizontal stroke across the lowercase of a letter form like “t” or “f”.
Crotch – It is the inside angle where the two strokes meet.
Cursive – Handwriting with joined up letters and can be said similar to italic font.
Descender – Parts of lowercase of letters which extends to its baseline.
Display Font – It is used for large type like Banners or headlines then such typefaces are used.
Ear – It’s a small stroke which gets extends to the bowl of lowercase of some letters like “r” or “g”.
Eye – It is an enclosed space in the lower case of the letter like “e”.
Finial – It is a tapered or curved end of letters like “a” or “e” at the bottom or some letters have at the top of double storey like “a”.
Flag – The part of the stem that rests on baseline.
Glyph – A single character whether it is mark, number, symbol, etc can be represented by glyph.
Grotesk – It’s a german name for san serif.
Halbfett – A German name for the bold weight in type family.
Head Serif – It is a half serif from the top starting point of letterform.
Hook – Curved stroke in the lower case of “f”.
Ink Trap – Some areas are opened so that ink can spread without leaving any dark spots.
Italic – Slanted towards right unlike roman typefaces which are upright.
Joint / Juncture – It is a part where the stroke joins the stem.
Kerning – It is a space between individual letters in a font to correct spacing problems.
Leading / Line Spacing – From baseline to baseline, it is a vertical space between the lines of texts.
Link / Neck – Its a connecting link between two bowls that is top and bottom in lowercase like “g”.
Loop / Lob – A projecting stroke which is partially or fully enclosed.
Midline – It’s a invisible line which rests on the lower case of the letter.
Oblique / Slanted – Slanted typefaces unlike italic which are drawn and crafted separately.
Overshoot – A round or pointed letter which extends higher or lower from the flat letter to make it look optically containing same size.
Pica – It’s a unit of measurement corresponding to 12 points or pixel.
Point – Its a unit of measurement corresponding to 1/12 of a pica or 1 pixel.
Point Size – Its a size of body of each character in a font.
Rasterization – When an image gets converted into raster (i.e. pixels or dots) from vector form then it’s called Rasterization.
Roman – It is a standard type style or regular weight of an upright typeface.
Serif – Small stroke at the beginning and end of the main strokes of the letter.
Small Caps – Capitals having similar height to lower case are designed for abbreviation and emphasis in texts.
Spacing – Horizontal space between each side of character.
Spur – In typography, it is a small part of protruding of a main stroke.
Spurless – Without a spur it is a transition of curves into straight stems.
Tail – The descending stroke of the letter like “Q”.
Taper – Thinner and refined end of a stroke.
Terminal – The end of a stroke that doesn’t come under serif.
Vertex – A point where two strokes meet at the bottom of the character in a font.
Weight – The heaviness of font apart from size can represents its weight or we can say through the terms thin or bold.
X-Height – The lower case height which is used as a guidance for the unextended lowercase letters.
