| With a plethora
of fonts at our fingertips, it's easy to forget that typography's
really a fine art. Here are some tips on what's in a typeface so
you can get the most out of your type design. |
| Fonts
vs Typefaces: A font is
a set of characters in a particular weight and style. A typeface is
a family of fonts. |
| Kerning
vs Tracking: Kerning changes
the space between two individual letters. Tracking alters
the space between letters in a larger string of text, such as
a paragraph. |
| Sans
Serif: Fonts
like Helvetica and Arial have no serifs, so they're called sans
serif fonts. See example below. |
| Serif: Serifs are
the hats, or strokes, that adorn the tips of letters. Times and
Palatino are Serif fonts. See
example below. |
| Point
Size: Font
sizes are measured in points. A single point is about 1/72nd
of an inch. |
|
| Cap
Height: The
height of a capital letter in a given font. |
| Leading: The
space from baseline to baseline between lines of type. This is measured
in points. |
| Baseline: The
invisible line on which type rests. See example below. |
| Descender: The
portion of a character that dips below the baseline. See
example below. |
| Mean
Line: The
height of all lowercase letters. See
example below. |
| X-Height: The
distance between the baseline and the mean line in a letter. |
| Ascender: The
portion of a character that rises above the x-height. See
example below. |
|
