Match Fonts to Mood
The role that type plays in is much more complex than just being a means to convey words clearly to the reader.
Every typeface has its own and projects a specific character - choose wisely to set the right mood and tone for your design project.
Anatomy of a Typeface
To ensure that all the characters work together well, a typeface is usually designed around a of horizontal lines, rather like a musical staff.
The is the height of a font's lowercase x.
are uppercase forms that are scaled to the same size as lowercase letters.
A is a part of a lowercase letter that extends below the baseline.
The is the part of a lowercase letter that extends above the x-height.
A is a description of a mark that makes up part of a character.
A is a horizontal bar that links two strokes.
An is a small stroke at the top of some lowercase "g's."
A is the end of a stroke with no serif.
is the angle at which equal widths of a curved stroke sit.
A is a curved stroke that creates an enclosed space.
A is a small, decorative extension at the ends of some strokes.
A is a vertical stroke.
A is a curved stroke that forms an arch.
A is a descender that forms a bowl.
A is a descending stroke that is often decorative.
The is the point where two diagonal strokes meet.
The is the curved stroke that makes up the body of an "s."
Measuring Type
The size of and their position in relation to each other have a huge influence on the look and readability of text.
Many of the ways we measure type developed from the early days of , when typefaces consisted of individual blocks of metal, each representing a character in a font.
Each size of the letter had to have it's own set of blocks.
is the size of the font, including the space taken up by its uppercase letters, ascenders, and descenders.
Fonts of the same point size but different can look very different when set in a block of text.