Anatomy of Type I
Anatomy of Type II
Words You Should Know!
Type Classifications
Type Family
100
A ligature of the Latin letters et and used to represent the word "and".
What is an Ampersand?
100
The horizontal stroke in letters.
What is the bar or crossbar?
100
The native language or dialect of a specific population.
What is vernacular?
100
Typefaces based on strict geometric forms, these letter forms have strokes that offer a “less is more” minimalism in their design. They tend to be clear, objective, and modern, yet impersonal, and boring.
What is Geometric Sans?
100
The standard style of a typeface, not altered by weight, width, angle or any other characteristic. This is often used for large blocks of text, such as the text of a book.
What is Roman?
200
The invisible line where all characters sit.
What is a baseline?
200
The descending, sometimes decorative stroke on the capital letters Q, K or R or lowercase letters g, j, p, q, and y.
What is a tail?
200
An ornament, character or spacer used in typesetting.
What is a dingbat?
200
These are sans faces that are derived from handwriting with letter forms generally having more detail, less consistency, and involve thinner and thicker stoke weights.
What is Humanist Sans?
200
Type set at an angle, generally slanting to the right from bottom to top. They are specifically designed within a typeface, meaning certain letters may be significantly different than the roman version to improve appearance and legibility.
What is Italic?
300
The part of the letter that extends below the baseline.
What is a desender?
300
A straight or curved diagonal line
What is a stroke?
300
The adjustment of space between individual letters.
What is kerning?
300
Also referred to as ‘Venetian’, these are our oldest typefaces, the result of centuries of development of our calligraphic forms. They are marked by little contrast between thick and thin and the curved letter forms tend to tilt to the left.
What is Old Style?
300
Type that is a heavier weight than roman type. and is often referred to as black or medium,depending on the weight and the preference of the typeface designer.
What is Bold?
400
Two or more letters joined together to form one glyph or character.
What is a ligature?
400
A stroke added at the end of the main strokes of a character.
What is a serif?
400
The 1/72 of an inch measurement used for specifying typographical dimensions.
What is a Point?
400
An outgrowth of Enlightenment thinking, this classification had type designers experimenting with making their letter forms more geometric, very sharp, and demonstrated an outstanding ability of contrasting thick and thin strokes.
What is Transitional and Modern?
400
Type that has a narrower face, which can fit into small spaces. It provides more style options while staying within the same family.
What is Condensed?
500
The height lowercase letters reach based on the height of the lowercase x. It does not include ascenders or descenders.
What is the x-height?
500
Numbers with varying heights, some aligning to the baseline and some below
What are old-style figures?
500
Majuscules that are less domineering and close in size to the minuscules of a given typeface.
What are Small Caps?
500
Also known as ‘Egyptian’, this classification offers strokes like those of sans faces - simple forms with relatively little contrast between thick and thin - but with solid, rectangular serfis.
What is Slab Serif?
500
Type that is wider than the standard type of a family. It is useful for headlines and other large type areas, and provides even greater flexibility within a family.
What is Extended?
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