Describing Type

Luke Watson

TypefacesA design for a set of characters. Popular typefaces include Times Roman, Helvetica, and Courier. The typeface represents one aspect of a font. The font also includes such characteristics as size, weight, italics, and so on.

here are two general categories of typefaces: serif and sans serif.

FONTSA font is a set of printable or displayable text character’s in a specific style and size. The type design for a set of fonts is the typeface and variations of this design form the typeface family. Thus, Helvetica is a typeface family, Helvetica italic is a typeface, and Helvetica italic 10-point is a font.

Upper Case

one of the large alphabetic characters used as the first letter in writing or printing proper names and sometimes for emphasis; "printers once kept the type forcapitals and for small letters in separate cases; capitals were kept in the upper half of thetype case and so became known as upper-case letters"

Lowercase(of an alphabetical letter) of a particular form often different from and smaller than its corresponding capital letter, and occurring after the initial letter of a proper name, of the first word in a sentence, etc. Examples: a, b, q, r.

NumeralsA numeral is a figure, symbol or group of figures/symbols that are denoting a number.

Also is a symbol expressing a number.

GlyphIn typography, a glyph is an elemental symbol within an agreed set of symbols, intended to represent a readable character for the purposes of writing. As such, glyphs are considered to be unique marks that collectively add up to the spelling of a word

Point SizeIn typography, the point is the smallest unit of measure. It is used for measuring font size, leading, and other items on a printed page. The size of the point has varied throughout the history of printing. Since the 18th century

AlignmentIn typesetting and page layout, alignment or range, is the setting of text flow or image placement relative to a page, column (measure), table cell or tab. The type alignment setting is sometimes referred to as text alignment, text justification or type justification.

Kerning In typography, kerning (less commonly mortising) is the process of adjusting the spacing between characters in a proportional font, usually to achieve a visually pleasing result. Kerning adjusts the space between individual letter forms.

Tracking In typography, letter-spacing, usually called tracking by typographers, refers to a consistent degree of increase (or sometimes decrease) of space between letters to affect density in a line or block of text. Tracking affects the overall character density of the copy. Other than the actual effect that it could have on readability of type, tracking would be used to make lines of type even. Tracking will help to eliminate widows and orphans in paragraphs.

DingbatsIn typography, a dingbat (sometimes more formally known as a printer's ornament or printer's character) is an ornament, character, or spacer used in typesetting, often employed for the creation of box frames. The term continues to be used in the computer industry to describe fonts that have symbols and shapes in the positions designated for alphabetical or numeric characters.