Intypography, acounter is thearea of a letter that is entirely or partially enclosed by a letter form or asymbol (the counter-space/the hole of).^[1][2] The stroke that creates such a space is known as a "bowl".^[3]Latin letters containing closed counters includeA,B,D,O,P,Q,R, a, b, d,e,g, o, p, and q. Latin letters containing open counters includec,f,h,s etc. Thedigits0,4,6,8, and9 also have counters. Anaperture is the opening between an open counter and the outside of the letter.

Open or closed counters are sometimes a source of typographic variants. The digit '4', for example, has two typographic variants: the closed-top variant '4' has a closed counter, and an open-top (e.g. handwritten) '' has an open counter.

Storey refers to the number of open or closed stacked counters, especially in the context of the lettersa andg and their typographic variants.

The lowercase 'g'has two typographic variants: the single-storey form (with a hook tail) has one closed counter and one open counter (and hence one aperture); the double-storey form (with a loop tail) has two closed counters. Typically, the letter is given a loop tail inserif typefaces but a hook tail insans-serif faces (e.g.,Times New Roman: g,Helvetica: g).^[a]

Different typeface styles have different tendencies to use open or more closed apertures. This design decision is particularly important for sans-serif typefaces, which can have very wide strokes making the apertures very narrow indeed.

Fonts designed for legibility often have very open apertures, keeping the strokes widely separated from one another to reduce ambiguity. This may be especially important in situations such as signs to be viewed at a distance, materials intended to be viewed by people with vision problems, or small print, especially on poor-quality paper.^[4] Fonts with open apertures includeLucida Grande,Trebuchet MS,Corbel andDroid Sans, all designed for use on low-resolution displays, andFrutiger,FF Meta and others designed for print use.^[5] This design trend has become increasingly common with the spread ofhumanist sans-serif designs since the 1980s and the 1990s and the use of computers requiring new fonts which are legible on-screen.

Grotesque orneo-grotesque sans-serif fonts likeHelvetica use very closed apertures, folding up stroke ends to make them closer together. This gives these designs a distinctive, compact appearance, but may make similar letterforms hard to distinguish. Closed letterforms on highly condensed grotesque designs such asImpact andHaettenschweiler make characters such as8 and9 almost indistinguishable at small print sizes. Designer Nick Shinn has suggested that the cause of this design trend, similar to theDidone serif typefaces of the nineteenth century, may have been the desire to distribute the pressure of the printing press on the type, reducing wear.^[7][8]

• Figure space
• Thin space
• Paren space
• Counterpunch (typography)

• Typography
• Whitespace

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