Chapter 3

From Graphic Design: The New Basics

Letter

A symbol representing a sound and constituting an individual letter of an alphabet.

Arm

A horizontal or diagonal stroke extending from a stem.

Ascender

The part of lowercase letters that rises above the x-height.

Axis

The oblique or angle of stress of the round part of a character or glyph.

Bar

The horizontal stroke connecting two sides of a letterform.

Baseline

The bottom of capital and lowercase letters, excluding descenders.

Bowl

A curved stroke that encloses a counter.

Cap height

The height of a capital letter from the baseline to the top of the cap.

Character

A letterform, number, punctuation mark, or any single unit in a font.

Counter

The space enclosed by the strokes of a letter.

Descender

The part of lowercase characters that falls below the baseline.

Ear

The projecting small stroke on the bowl of the letter g.

Foot

The bottom portion of a character.

Hairline

The thin stroke of a roman character.

Head

The top portion of a letter.

Italics

A style variant of a typeface suggesting a cursive origin.

Leg

A lower downward stroke of a letter.

Ligature

Two or more characters linked together.

Link

The connecting stroke between a two-story lowercase g.

Loop

The lower portion of the two-story lowercase g.

Oblique

A slanting version of a typeface without the script quality of italic.

Serif

A small stroke added to the upper or lower end of the main stroke of a character.

Shoulder

Curved stroke of the lowercase h, m, or n.

Spine

The main curved stroke of the letter S.

Spur

A small projection of the main stroke.

Stem

The main upright stroke of a character.

Stress

The angle of the major axis of the stroke of a letter.

Stroke

A line used to define a major structural portion of a character.

Swash

A decorative extension on a letterform.

Tail

The descender of the letter Q.

Terminal

The end of a stroke not terminated with a serif.

Text Type

Narrative content set smaller than titles or headlines.

Thick/thin contrast

The comparative thicknesses of the strokes in a typeface.

Vertex

The foot of a pointed letter.

Weight

Determined by the thickness of the stroke compared to the height.

x-height

The height from the top of a lowercase x the base line, excluding ascenders and descenders.

Readability

The ease with which text can be read, influenced by design factors.

Legibility

How easily a person can recognize the letters in a typeface.