Books are bound using a variety of binding techniques, from traditional to modern ones, and from various corners of the world: Japanese or Chinese bindings, Otabind, Smyth sewing, perfect binding, and others.

The word calligraphy comes from the Greek kalos, meaning “beautiful,” and graphein, meaning “to write.” Together, it means “to write beautifully.”

Many civilizations around the world have practiced calligraphy (and continue to do so today) using a variety of tools: brush, pen, quill, broad nib pen or brush, etc. Most even consider it to be an art form.

Today, we tend to describe a calligraphic style typeface when it is inspired by letters and characters written with a calligraphy tool, following certain calligraphy styles. However, it is slightly different from “script” or “handwritten” styles, as these refer to handwritten shapes which are free from any particular calligraphic style.

The contour is the line (or outline) shaping a glyph, in both digital type design and analog practice.

Glyphs from every script are written with a specific stroke order and drawn in a specific direction. This is called the ductus (from Latin ducere, meaning “to lead,” “to pull”). It took multiple evolution phases for characters to look as they do today. Most ductus changes were for characters to be written more easily (and/or faster) with the tools used.

In typography (or typesetting), a structure—called a grid—is designed on a page to place the elements, helping with the content’s organization and legibility.

The word ‘handwriting’ refers to texts written by hand.

For each category of glyphs in a character set (caps, lowercase, smallcaps, etc.), the designer uses specific height levels as guidelines. They help maintain the consistency of the shapes and the positioning of the various elements for every glyph throughout the typeface.

A lettering is a drawing of a group of characters made for a specific situation (such as on a shop sign) or for a piece of work (a brand’s logo, a title for a magazine insert, etc.), unlike a typeface where each and every glyph is individually designed in a way to work in all kinds of combinations.

Lithography is a printing technique that allows for fast production of elaborate prints using stone plates (lithos means ‘stone’ in Greek).

HISTORY

Lithography was invented in 1796 by German theater play actor Aloys Senefelder (1771–1834), who wanted to print his works by himself and eventually became a printer. Printing complex and elaborate visuals was a popular technique, which gave closer results to the original drawings than other techniques of that time. Lithography allowed for multiple layers, and multiple colors, which was largely used in the advertising industry. Before digital printing, some books combined several techniques (lithography and/or engravings for images, hot metal printing for texts).

TECHNIQUE

The process of lithography printing uses the hydrophobic/hydrophilic chemical reaction between water and oil. Combined with the effect of acid or corrosive products which creates the area for water to go in, the more greasy ink can be kept on the surface and transferred to the paper to be printed.

TODAY

Nowadays, lithography is mostly used to print artistic works and other specific prints, as the process is much more costly than modern techniques, even if it renders a high quality result.

A manuscript is a document with texts written by hand.

The shapes used to form the words and texts we read are seen by our eyes. And our eyes and brain are organs that don’t rely on geometry, rulers, and compasses to ‘read’ the world.

Even if they are geometrically aligned, some shapes may look uneven and need to be optically adjusted to appear consistent. In type design, we talk about optical corrections.

Pagination is the page numbering system of a printed document.

A revival is a (digital) typeface which takes its designs from an existing one (most often a printing typeface: metal, wood, or photocomposition).

Inevitably, the design of a revival contains unique details of the designer, from interpretations of the initial design while analyzing printed results on paper to those on screen at various resolutions. Today, we can see multiple typefaces designed as revivals from one and the same typeface, but each have (sometimes very subtle) differences. For example, we can think of the many versions of the Garamond.

A revival from a running text typeface is considered as a good assignment for students starting to learn typeface design, as this allows to get more familiar with styles considered as “conventional” before experimenting further with more creativity.

A specimen is a visual sample document published by type foundries that showcases a typeface, its glyph set, text settings in different sizes, Opentype features, etc.
A collection of specimens of different typefaces bound together is called a typeface catalog.

The spine is the side of a printed object (book, brochure, etc.) which is bound.

A template serves as a model for typography and typesetting. Like a reference guideline, it helps with the composition of the elements in a page (images, texts, spaces, grids, etc.), printed or on screen, to create a coherent and consistent document with specific design characteristics.

Typography (or typesetting) is the practice of assembling text elements in a design composition by defining multiple aspects such as the ratio between text columns and white spaces, choosing and using typefaces, setting their styles and sizes for all categories of texts, leading, justification style, and hyphenation, etc.

The person practicing typography is called a typographer.

Not to be confused with Typeface Design.

The x-height is the guideline placed at the top of the Latin letter x.

It helps to align the other lowercase letters and to set the proportions with uppercase letters and the ascenders.

Because the letter x is the only lowercase letter without ascenders and horizontal tips at its top and bottom (it has no overshoots), it is the reference letter for lowercase height.