To name and describe parts of letters and other characters, many terms are borrowed from architecture (e.g. arch of an n) or from human and animal anatomy (e.g. leg of an R), which is why we are speaking of “type design anatomy.”

The aperture is the frontier between the counter and the surrounding white space of opened letters (such as a, e or c).

A larger aperture increases the legibility of a typeface and is highly recommended for text typefaces.

The apex is the point on the top of a letter where two stems meet, such as the top of the letter A or the middle of w.

Many terms are borrowed from architecture or from human and animal anatomy to designate and describe parts of letters and other characters. We are even speaking of type design anatomy.

In Latin script, the arch is the top-right part of letters such as n, m, h and a.

Many terms are borrowed from architecture or human and animal anatomy to designate and describe parts of letters and other characters. We are even speaking of type design anatomy.

In Latin script, the arm is the horizontal bar at the top of the letter T.

The parts of lowercase letters that go above the x-height level (such as b, d or h) are called ascenders.

On the opposite side of the x-height, the parts going below the baseline are descenders.

Both don’t necessarily need to have the same length. In general, descenders are shorter than ascenders.

Attention: do not confuse it with the capital height (or cap height).

In Latin script, we speak of a “diagonal,” “tilted” or “oblique” axis when we refer to the shapes of letters in a typeface that have some contrast.

In calligraphy (when using a broad nib pen), the axis of the stroke is defined by the angle at which the pen is held, from which a contrast between thin and thick parts is formed. The axis should be kept the same (or very similar) for a consistent construction on all glyphs.

The baseline is where the bottom extremity of letters such as n and H are positioned, and it is used as a reference guide for the entire character set. We also say that letters are “sitting” on the baseline.

The baseline—with other guidelines like x-height, ascender, descender and capital height—helps to control the position of all letters and glyphs.

The bounding box is the rectangle enclosing a digital glyph.

Its width can vary from glyph to glyph, but the height of a bounding box covers the highest and lowest parts of the entire typeface.

In digital texts, the bounding box of a glyph is highlighted when some text or characters are selected.

Many terms are borrowed from architecture or human and animal anatomy to designate and describe parts of letters and other characters. We are even speaking of type design anatomy.

In the Latin script, the bowl is the rounded parts of letters like a, B, P, R, etc.

The cap height (short for capital height) is at the top level of square capital letters, such as H.

The cap height is usually lower than the ascender height and is one of the main guidelines for Latin typefaces.

In the Chinese Hanzi script, the center space (or optical core, 中宫 in Chinese) corresponds to the central area of a character, similar in Latin to the area between the x-height and the baseline. This area can differ from style to style, but it has to be visually constant for all characters in a typeface.

A text typeface with a bigger center space has its legibility improved for small sizes.

A counter (or counterform) is the negative shape inside a glyph with an enclosed form, either entirely closed (such as b) or partially open (such as n).

This term comes from the counterpunch used for punching the inside white space of a letterform in metal type punch. They were cut before the outer shape, and reused to make types of every related letter, to keep a consistent look on the entire font.

Many terms are borrowed from architecture or human and animal anatomy to designate and describe parts of letters and other characters. We are even speaking of type design anatomy.

For Latin script, the crossbar is the horizontal bar on letters like A or H.

The parts of lowercase letters going below the baseline (such as p, q or y) are called descenders. In the same typeface, all descenders need to have the same height for overall consistency.

On the opposite side, parts going above the x-height are ascenders, like in letters b, d or f.

Both ascenders and descenders don’t necessarily need to have the same length. In general, descenders are shorter than ascender

Diacritics are markers added to letters. They can be above, below, or attached to a letter. In most languages and scripts using diacritics, these bring to the letter a different sound than that of the letter by itself.

LATIN ALPHABET

The Latin script is used in a large number of languages. Most of them use diacritics to bring (sometimes very subtle) variations of sound to letters. The quality of the sound of a diacritic can be different from one language to another. An example with the cedilla ç, used in French, Portuguese, and Turkish. Other languages even use multiple diacritics combined together with the same letter (like in Vietnamese with ở).

ARABIC SCRIPT

In the Arabic script, letters have different pronunciations depending on which diacritic is attached to them (or not there), and the language in use.

CHINESE PINYIN

In Mainland China during the 1950s, a new phonetic transcription system was created to make Chinese learning easier: Pinyin, which borrows Latin alphabet letters combined with diacritics as tone markers.

DESIGN

When creating a typeface, diacritics are designed as individual glyphs and are then combined with letters as components in type design applications. They need to be:

• visually aligned to the same height with one another (for those placed in the same area);
• have consistent weight and color;
• placed in a position with the letter that feels “natural” for each language.

Many terms are borrowed from architecture or human and animal anatomy to designate and describe parts of letters and other characters. We are even speaking of type design anatomy.

For Latin script, the drop refers to the top hanging part of r or a that looks like a drop falling downward, generally present in serif style fonts.

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.

Many terms are borrowed from architecture or human and animal anatomy to designate and describe parts of letters and other characters. We are even speaking of type design anatomy.

In the Latin script, the ear refers to the top-right hanging part of the letters like r, f or the double storey g.

To designate and describe parts of letters and other characters, many terms are borrowed from architecture or from human and animal anatomy. We are even speaking of type design anatomy.

In Latin type design, the eye refers to the ratio between the x-height and the other guidelines (ascenders and descenders).

A typeface is suited for text usage if it has a ratio slightly bigger between its eye to its ascenders and descenders, as this enhances the legibility of the letters.

In East Asian typeface design (Chinese, Japanese, and Korean), characters (commonly called Hanzi) are settled in a squared frame, the same for all characters of one typeface.

The glyph surface (字面 in Chinese, literally ‘face of the character’) is the area occupied by the character in its square.

In Chinese Hanzi script, the gravity center (also barycenter, 重心 in Chinese, literally ‘focus’) can be perceived as the optical center of a glyph, similar to the horizontal bar of the capital letter H.

It has to be visually aligned for all characters—especially for text typefaces—to allow a fluid and continuous reading.

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.

Many terms are borrowed from architecture or human and animal anatomy to designate and describe parts of letters and other characters. We are even speaking of type design anatomy.

In the Latin script, the hook refers to the part curling downward in letters such as c, f, r, s, etc.

Depending on the style or the shape of this part, it can also be called an ear, an arch or a (upper) terminal.

When printing technology was primarily based on printing inked metal types on paper, ink could easily spread in the small corners of the characters (in printing, this effect is called bleed), especially at small sizes, weakening their legibility.

One of the best examples of a typeface solving that problem is Bell Centennial, designed by Matthew Carter in 1975 for the US telephone company AT&T which needed a typeface for their phone books (printed on a thin and porous paper). This typeface has inner corners to go into the letterforms’ usual contours, called ink traps.

In digital typeface design, designers still use ink traps, especially for typefaces intended for small sizes (on printed and/or digital media), but also as design features (which can go pretty wild!).

Many terms are borrowed from architecture or human and animal anatomy to designate and describe parts of letters and other characters. We are even speaking of type design anatomy.

The junction is the meeting point of two strokes.

Many terms are borrowed from architecture or human and animal anatomy to designate and describe parts of letters and other characters. We are even speaking of type design anatomy.

In Latin script, the leg is the lower diagonal stroke of letters like R, k or K.

Back in the metal type printing era, some glyph combinations were used repeatedly as they often occurred in some languages. They needed to be modified to have a combination that looks evenly spaced like the rest of the text (such as f and i). Punch-cutters created one type with the letters connected together instead of using two individual ones, and are called ligatures.

The same principle has been kept in digital typefaces and ligatures exist as independent glyphs. OpenType features allow us to switch from two separated glyphs to their ligature variant thanks to the ligature alternate features (if they exist in the selected typeface).

Many terms are borrowed from architecture or human and animal anatomy to designate and describe parts of letters and other characters. We are even speaking of type design anatomy.

In Latin script, the loop is the lower part of a double storey g, looking like a loop, open or closed.

DESCRIPTION

Oldstyle figures are designed to fit with the design of lowercase characters.
They are more often used in texts as they visually blend in better than the other figure variants.

HISTORY

The proportions of oldstyle figures are closely related to how they were written in calligraphy using similar strokes and movements as those of the (lowercase) letters.

EVOLUTION

Oldstyle figures are also called ‘traditional’ figures in some languages, as more modern styles came later on (hence the name identification) as better adapted forms to specific situations: tabular, lining or proportional figures.
In digital typefaces, several style sets of figures are available and can be accessed via the alternate sets.

The overshoot of a glyph is the part that goes slightly beyond the height of its fellow letters to achieve an optical evenness, such as rounded letters compared to square ones.

See Optical Corrections for more details.

DESCRIPTION

Serifs are elements at the tips of strokes in serif style typefaces.

HISTORY

The origin and evolution of serifs differ in different scripts and don’t even exist in others.
For the Latin script, serifs come from the combination of the movements of the brush when writing Roman capital letters (the origins of the Latin alphabet) and stone carving techniques.

EVOLUTION

Calligraphy, metal and wood type printing, photo composition, typewriters, digital typefaces, all of these tools and techniques contributed various shapes and presence (or absence) or serifs among the various typeface styles that we see today.

The positioning of serifs in each letter has been defined by the writing ductus combined with the tools use. For example, the general rule is that serifs should be on both sides at the top and bottom of vertical stems for upright letters, and none on the bottom of italic stems.

There are multiple possibilities for the shapes of serifs: thin, thick, long, short, wedged, squared, triangular, etc. Many typeface styles have a particular serif shape as part of their characteristics.

IMPRESSION

In Latin script, different impressions and feelings are associated with specific typeface styles (traditional, luxurious, casual, elegant, etc.), which are mainly due to the circumstances of their creation, usage preferences, and habits.
For example, humanist or transitional serifs are the go-to styles for long reading uses.

DESIGN

For styles where serifs are on both sides of the stems, some asymmetrical letters (such as f, r, F or P) have a large opened counter on one side. To compensate for the imbalance created by the “empty space”, the designer can adjust the serif on that side by making it longer.

A side bearing is the distance between a glyph’s side and its bounding box. In scripts written horizontally, there is always a left side bearing (LSB) and a right side bearing (RSB). Managing the side bearing values is working on the spacing of the typeface.

Latin letters a and g can be represented with two different constructions:

• single storey, for modern and/or geometric styles;
• double storey, for traditional and/or classical styles.

In some typefaces, both constructions are available, as designers feel that some users prefer one over the other.

The letter g can also be designed with a half storey construction, often seen in Scandinavian designs as a legacy from Danish street signs.

Many terms are borrowed from architecture or human and animal anatomy to designate and describe parts of letters and other characters. We are even speaking of type design anatomy.

The skeleton is the center line around which every part of a glyph is built (weight, contrast, curvature, terminals, etc.). Keeping the skeleton the same across multiple styles of one typeface family is, by definition, keeping the same structure, which is one of the principal ways to maintain design consistency.

Spacing is about managing the values of a glyph’s side bearings (or the distance between its most left and right side edge to the side of the bounding box), which influences the distance between each glyph combination.

Good spacing is just as important as the design of glyphs themselves, as the combination of both influences the quality of a typeface.

Many terms are borrowed from architecture or human and animal anatomy to designate and describe parts of letters and other characters.. We are even speaking of type design anatomy.

In the Latin script, the spine is the middle curve segment of characters like s or S.

Many terms are borrowed from architecture or human and animal anatomy to designate and describe parts of letters and other characters. We are even speaking of type design anatomy.

In many writing systems, a glyph’s stem refers to its vertical bar(s) or stroke(s).

Letters, characters, and other glyphs are written with strokes. Their shapes and writing direction come from how they were traced by hand with the many tools humanity used for writing.

Every glyph of every writing system follows a specific structure for its parts (positioning of the strokes in relation to each other). People reading words and texts in a given script would recognize the glyphs (letters, characters, symbols, etc.) if their structure follows a convention that is familiar to all of users.

Due to the evolution of each script, the structure can change over time (e.g., Fraktur styles), or have multiple variants (e.g., single and double storey a).

Swashes are the elongated extensions of letters, designed with longer strokes than their “usual” construction, most generally as a decorative feature and/or in display style typefaces.

HISTORY

They appeared during the metal type era in the Latin world, when swashed letters served as decorative features to the text. They were also a way to showcase the punch-cutters’ skills, sometimes with incredibly long and elaborate swashes.
Swashes still have the same purpose today in digital typefaces, where “normal” letters are the default ones and swashes can be activated as alternates from the typefaces’ features (if available).

Many terms are borrowed from architecture or human and animal anatomy to designate and describe parts of letters and other characters. We are even speaking of type design anatomy.

In the Latin script, the tail is a terminal part at the bottom of letters like t, y or Q.

Many terms are borrowed from architecture or human and animal anatomy to designate and describe parts of letters and other characters. We are even speaking of type design anatomy.

The terminal of a character is its very last part, according to its ductus. The shape of the terminal can vary depending on the style of the typeface, with names that ‘feel’ most suited to its shape (drop, ear, serif, etc.).

The thickest part(s) of a glyph is called the thick. The opposite is the thin, and the relation between thick and thin is called the contrast.

The thinnest part(s) of a glyph is called the thin. The opposite is the thick, and the relation between thick and thin is called the contrast.

Many terms are borrowed from architecture or human and animal anatomy to designate and describe parts of letters and other characters. We are even speaking of type design anatomy.

In the Latin script, the waist is the middle part of letters like B or R, where the stroke’s connection shapes a narrower part.

A white space is any part of a glyph that is not of the glyph itself. They can be counters (inside), spaces, or negative space (outside).

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.