Typeface anatomy describes the graphic elements that make up letters in atypeface.[1][2]
Typefaces are born from the struggle between rules and results. Squeezing a square about 1% helps it look more like a square; to appear the same height as a square, a circle must bemeasurably taller. The two strokes in an X aren't the same thickness, nor are their parallel edges actually parallel; the vertical stems of a lowercase alphabet are thinner than those of its capitals; the ascender on a d isn't the same length as the descender on a p, and so on. For the rational mind, type design can be a maddening game of drawing things differently in order to make them appear the same.
Thestrokes are the components of aletterform.[4] Strokes may bestraight, as ink l v w x z, orcurved, as inc o s. If straight, they may behorizontal, vertical, ordiagonal; if curved,open orclosed. Typographers also speak of aninstroke, where one starts writing the letter, as at the top ofa c f, and anoutstroke, where the pen leaves off, as at the bottom ofc e j k t y.[5]
A main vertical stroke is astem. The letterm has three, the left, middle, and right stems. The central stroke of ans is known as thespine.[6] When the stroke is part of alowercase[4] and rises above the height of anx (thex height), it is known as anascender.[7]Letters with ascenders areb d f h k l. A stroke which drops below thebaseline is adescender.[7] Letters with descenders areg j p q y.
An arching stroke is ashoulder as in the top of anR or sometimes just anarch, as inh n m.[4] A closed curved stroke is abowl inb d o p q D O P Q;B has two bowls. A bowl with a flat end as inD P is alobe.[8] A trailing outstroke, as inj y J Q R is atail. The inferior diagonal stroke inK is aleg.[9] The bottom of thetwo-storyg is aloop; the very short stroke at the top is theear.[10] The lettersi j each have adot ortittle.[10]
A short horizontal stroke, as in the center ofe f and the middle stroke ofE F, is abar. Strokes that connect, as inA andH, or cross other strokes, as int, are also known as crossbars.[9] A longer horizontal stroke at the top or bottom, as inE T, is anarm.[4] The junction of two strokes intersecting above as inA M X x is anapex and the joining of two strokes intersecting below as inV W v w is a vertex.[10]
The font shown in the example isstressed; this means that strokes have varying widths. In this example, the stroke at the top of the "g" is thinner at the top and bottom than on the sides – a vertical stress. Fonts without any variation in the stroke width are known as monoline fonts.
Theterminal (end) of an instroke or outstroke is often aserif or astroke ending. A seriffed terminal may be described as awedge, bulbous, teardrop, slab, etc., depending on the design of the type. Typefaces may be classified by their look, of which theweight andserif style – whetherserif orsans-serif – are key features.[9] Some designs also havespurs, which are smaller than serifs and appear on angles rather than at a terminal, as one orG.
Areas ofnegative space (white space) formed by straight or curved strokes are calledcounters. Closed counters are found ina b d e g o p q A B D O P Q R, and open counters ina c e f h m n r s t u. The closed counter ine is also named aneye.[9] The termstorey refers to stacked counters: When the letter a appears with two counters it is referred to asdouble-storey a, and when the letter g appears with two closed counters it is known asdouble-storeyg.[11]
Angles of white space, as inW w, arecorners (w has three corners); the term is not used for angles of strokes. The small corner formed by a serif, whether curved or angular, is called the serifbracket.
Inter-letter space can be reduced withkerning. Akern is the part of a letter that intrudes into the "box" of an adjacent glyph.
A subtle change in proportion impacts weight, perception, measure, andlegibility. The letterform height compared to its stroke width modifies theaspect ratio; a slight change in weight sometimes helps to create emphasis. The disparity between thick and thin strokes, known asstress, alters optical perception. As an example, the firstsans serif typefaces used strokes of constant thickness, but subsequent technological advances permit drawing thinner strokes.Condensed type occupies less space thanexpanded type, so that a whole page of text can be reduced to half a page. The capline and x-height ratio improve or decrease word legibility.[4]
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During the latemetal type period, many fonts (particularly in American typefounding) were issued to "common line".[12] This meant that they were made to standardised proportions, so that fonts of different typefaces could be mixed with no difficulty. This made it possible to mix typefaces from completely different genres such as sans-serifs and serifs and have the cap height, baseline and linespacing match perfectly, something not possible with mostcomputer fonts.[12] It even allowed mixing of different sizes of type with a consistent baseline. It however had the disadvantage of often forcing typefaces to be issued with croppeddescenders compared to historical typefaces, to allow tight linespacing. A "script line" or "art line" was used for more delicate fonts with long descenders.Titling capitals, meanwhile, were issued taking up the whole space of the metal type area, with no room for descenders.[13][14]
individual parts such as the spine of the S
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