Designing with Type: Chapter 1 - Basics of Typography

Phoenician Alphabet

* A series of 22 written symbols that represented sounds. * It contained no vowels, only consonants.

Roman alphabet

*The alphabet evolved by the ancient Romans which serves for writing most of the languages of western Europe *The Romans adopted and modified he Greek Alphabet

Small Caps

A complete alphabet of caps that are the same size as the body, or x-height of the lowercase letters. It's often used in text settings where regular capitals are required but might create unwanted emphasis.

Sans Serif

A font that does not have the small line extensions on its characters.

Light

A lighter or thinner version of the regular typeface.

Condensed

A narrower version of the regular typeface. Also referred to as compressed

Bold

A thicker, heavier version of the regular typeface, commonly used for increased emphasis.

Extended

A wider version of the regular typeface also known as expanded.

Letterspacing and Wordspacing

Adjusting the spacing between letters and words not only affects the number of characters that can be set on a line, but also readability. the looser the setting, the fewer characters per line. the together the setting, the more characters per line.

Modern Figures

Also called lining figures, these are numbers that resemble caps by being uniform in height. They are most often used for annual reports, charts, tables, and any application where numbers are meant to stand out or supply critical information.

Old Style Figures

Also called nonlining figures, these are similar to lowercase characters in the way they vary in size and may ave ascenders and descenders. They are primarily used when less obtrusive numerals are required.

Uppercase

Capital letters or caps of the alphabet. When abbreviated they are indicated as Caps, UC, or simply C. It comes from the early days of handset type when capital letters were stored in the upper section of the typecase

Punctuation

In early Greek and Roman writing there was no punctuation. Words were either run together or separated with a dot or slash. It wasn't until the 15th century punctuation was normalized.

Spacing

It was traditionally specified with the following general terms: normal, loose (or open), tight, very tight, or touching.

Minuscule

Lowercase letters

Type Families

The different options available within a typeface make up a type family. Many typefaces are at a minimum available in roman, bold and italic. Other families are much larger, such as Helvetica Neue, which is available in options such Condensed Bold, Condensed Black, UltraLight, UltraLight Italic, Light, Light Italic, Regular, etc.

X-height

The height of the body or main element of the lowercase letter form, which falls between the meanline and the baseline. it conveys the visual impression of the type size.

Line Length in Picas

The pica is used to indicate the length of a line of type - called the line length or measure. Inches and centimeters may also be employed to measure line lengths, picas remain standard.

Italic

The second most common typestyle. It is not merely just roman characters slanted to the right but is specifically created to be a companion to the roman. it is mainly used for quiet emphasis.

Lowercase

The small letters of the alphabet, often indicated as lc. When combined with uppercase, they are indicated as U/lc, U&lc, or C/lc

Counter

The space entirely or partially enclosed within a letter form, such as the enclosed "bowl" of the letters b,d, and p.

Ligatures

Two o more characters joined as a single nit. They are a typographic refinement that compensates for certain letters that set poorly when combined ex. ff, fi, f, ffi, ffl

Letters Un-Changed, Changed, Dropped and Added by the Romans

Un-hanged: A,B,E,H,I,K,M,N,O,T,X,Y,Z Changed: C,D,G,L,P,R,S,V Added: F and Q; U and W added 1,000 years ago, J added 5 centuries later Dropped: alpha, beta, gamma

Majuscules

Uppercase letters

Ideaographs

a graphic symbol that represents an idea or concept

Pictograph

a pictorial symbol for a word or phrase.

Thin

an extremely light version of the regular typeface

Meanline

an imaginary lines that runs along the top of most lowercase letters, such as a, c, e, i , m, n, u, v, w, and x

Baseline

an imaginary lines upon which the characters seem to be standing on

Typeface

it refers to the specific design of an alphabet

Typestyles

refers to styles such as italic, bold, underlining, and capitalization. Most of these typestyles are simply variations in the weight or width of the letterforms.

Type size were divided into two categorie

text type and display type. the text type sizes designed for general reading were 5,6,7,8,9,10,11,12, and 14 points. the traditional display sizes desgined primarily for headlines were 16,18,20,24,30,342,48,60, and 72 points

Kerning

the adjustment of space between pairs of letters to improve its appearance or alter its fit

Fonts

the combination of typeface and other qualities, such as size, pitch, and spacing. A font refers to a specific typeface and typestyle but no longer refers to a particular typesize.

Serif

the finishing strokes that project from the main stroke of a letter. it originated with the Roman Masons

Characters

the individual letters, punctuation, numerals, and other elements that are used when setting type.

Picas

the larger unit are used to measure the length of a line of type. They are approximately 6 picas in 1 inch

Ascender

the part of some lowercase letters that falls below the baseline, such as the strokes on the letters p, y, and g.

Em-Quad

the square of a specific type size and therefore varies according to type size. a 1-em space is still utilized as the standard paragraph indent and is called a 1-em indent. For technology the em-quad was further subdivided into segments called units.

Regular

the standard weight of a typeface also referred to as normal

Two dimensions of a piece of type are relevant to today's designer

the width and the depth. the set-width is determined by the particular letter form itself. The depth of the type block designates the size of metal type.

Set-width

the width of a character, relative to its cap height. the wider the character, the greater the set-width

Leading

to add space, strips of lead were placed between the lines of type. the process was called leading and were lower in height than the type and therefore did not print; their function was merely to separate the liens of type. today its referred to as linespacing.

Type Classification

various styles of type that fall into larger categories such as old style, transitional, modern, Egyptian/slab serif, sans serif, decorative/novelty script, and black letter.

Points

very small units used to measure both the type size and the size of the space between lines of type. There are 12 points in 1 pica