The Anatomy of Typography

What is typography?

Type is a physical embodiment of letters piece of metal or wood.

Typeface is the design the way it looks.

Glyph are different designs for the same character.

Font is the same font even if it’s in italic, bold, thin, regular.

Lettering- just designing the letters in a word, not in an alphabet.

Text type- text in a paragraph, a larger amount of quantity.

Display lettering- initially used for logos.

Anatomy of type

The grid is certain layout of type. The Grid contains 3 lines, cap height, x height, and baseline. The cap height is the height from the baseline to the top of the letter. The x height is the height from the baseline to the top of the letter. Finally, the Baseline is where the letters rest on the baseline.

Ascender is any part of a lowercase letter above the x-height

Descender is any part of a lowercase letter below the baseline.

Terminal is the end of a stroke

Italic only found in serif type. Italic is designed to create a more compressed approach towards a basic shape letter. The design of Italics was by scratch, hand written.

Oblique is a slanted typeface however created mechanically unlike italic which is drawn and crafted separately.

A serif is a small line attached to the end of a stroke in a letter. A san serif is the opposite, a letterform without a serif. Some san serif typefaces are described as Grotesque (meaning elaborately decorated) or Gothic (commonly used for Japanese Gothic typefaces), in addition to serif typefaces as Roman.

Serifs first originated in the Latin alphabet, where the letters were engraved into stone in Roman antiquity.  Serif fonts are classified into four groups: old style, transitional, Didone and slab serif.

Old style

Old style typefaces originated in 1465, just after Johannes Gutenberg’s creation of movable type printing press. Early printers in Italy created type by using Gutenberg’s black lettering, where they created italic styles, influenced by Renaissance calligraphy. Old style serif fonts have remained popular due to them being readable on book paper.  Garamond is an example of old style typeface.

Transitional

Transitional typefaces first became common around mid 18^th century. These font ways are in-between ‘old style’ and ‘modern fonts’. The ends of many strokes of the serif are marked with ball terminals. Later on in the 18^th century, transitional typefaces in Britain and American showed influences through the Didone typeface. Times New Roman is described as transitional and sometimes old-style as well.

Didone

Didone/ Modern serif typefaces first emerged in the late 18^th century. The didone typeface contrast between thick and thin lines; the serifs tend to be thin, and the vertical lines very heavy. Many Didone fonts are less readable contrasted to the Old style and transitional typeface. An example of didone serif typeface is Bodoni font. Didone fonts are mostly used for high-gloss magazines such as Harper Bazaar. Didone typefaces are mainly used for display use.

Slab serif

Slab serif typefaces originated around 1800. The serifs are thick which was created for posters, as they were designed to be attention-grabbing. Rockwell typeface is a more geometric slab serif contrasted to Clarendon. 

Latin/ Wedge-serifs

Latin or wedged serif forms are typefaces with serifs that form a point and visibly widen outwards. Latin style type and lettering is popular in Europe, particularly France. Due to the elegance of the serif, which therefore is used for signage applications such as business cards and shop fonts. Gothic and copperplate fonts are examples of Latin serif typefaces.

I have created a sketch to show the different elements in type.

Tittle is the dot on the ‘i’ and ‘j’ lined above the cap line.

Uppercase is the capitals in the typeface.

Counter is the negative space, for example in the ‘o’

Eye is the smaller counter in a lower case ‘e’

Bowl is the fully closed, rounded part of a letter, for instance in the ‘b’.

Aperture is a counter which is entirely or partially enclosed by a letterform or symbol.

Tail is a decorative stroke often on the letter Q.

Ear is a small stroke extending outwards usually found on a lowercase g and r.

Ligature- two or more letters joined together to form a glyph.

Ampersand is a logogram & originally designed with the letters ‘e’ and ‘t’ to represent the word ‘and’.