Typographic Design Study Guide

Typographic Design Study Guide

• Capline: The height of capital letters measured from the baseline to the top of capital letters (e.g., E, H, I).

• Ascender Line: Imaginary line marking the top of lowercase letters that lack ascenders.

• Meanline: Imaginary line marking the top of lowercase letters that have ascenders.

• Baseline: Imaginary line at the bottom of most lowercase and capital letters.

• Spine: The backbone of the letterform providing structure.

• Counter: Partially or fully enclosed space within a character.

• Ear: Small stroke extending from the top of lowercase g.

• Ascender: Portion of lowercase letters that extend above the x-height (e.g., b, d, f, h, k, l, t).

• Shoulder: Curving stroke of letters like h, m, n.

• Serif: Projections extending from the main strokes of serif typefaces.

• Stem: Major vertical or diagonal stroke.

• Link: Stroke connecting parts of a two-story lowercase letter (e.g., g).

• Bowl: Curved stroke forming an enclosed area within a character.

• Descender: Portion of letters that fall below the baseline (e.g., g, j, p, q, y).

• X-height: Height of the body of the lowercase letter x.

Type Styles

• Popular Type Faces: List including Serif-24pt, Garamond, Times, Caslon, Minion, Palatino.

• Sans Serif-24pt: Helvetica, Impact, Futura, Verdana, Myriad.

• Script: 24pt; Edwardian Script, Brush Script, Snell roundhand.

Body Copy Print (10pts – 12pts)

• Model Releases: Recent case of photo use for commercial purposes without release resulted in a settlement exceeding one million dollars.
• Sizing: 10pt text Garamond, Auto leading- Optical Kerning (12 pt text Garamond, Auto leading- Optical kerning).

Body Copy Electronic (16pts – 18pts)

• Web Design: Increase type size by 30% for web/screen design.

• Sizing: 16pt, 18pt Body Copy is suitable for web design.

Display Type (14pts – 300pts)

• Display/Headline Type: 14pts and above. Often sans-serif.
• Sizes: 14pts, 18pts, 24pts, 36pts, 48pts, 60, 72 (72pts = 1 inch).
• Helvetica Bold: A common choice for display type.

Text Alignment

• Alignment: Left-aligned is most common. Right alignment, Center alignment and Justification are other options.

Legibility vs. Readability

• Legibility: How well letters are seen.

• Readability: How easily words and phrases are read.

Leading, Kerning, Tracking

• Leading: Space between lines of type.

• Kerning: Space between two letters.

• Tracking: Space between multiple letters.

Cutline or Photo Caption

• Caption Example: "Blue jay flying through boreal forest."

Orphan & Widow

• Orphan: Last line of a paragraph that’s separated and appears at the top of the following page.

• Widow: Last line of a paragraph at the beginning of a page which is separated.

Line Length

• Body Text Line Length: Optimal line length for body text is 50-75 characters.

Pull Quote

• Definition: Key phrase, quotation or excerpt from an article, used for emphasis on the page.

• Use Cases: Attracting attention, highlighting a key topic.

• Features: Smaller selection of text, pulled out and quoted; Larger typeface.

Gutter

• Definition: The space between columns of text (usually .125 inches).

Readers Spreads

• Definition: Consecutive placement of pages by page number (e.g., 1, 2/3, 4/5, 6/7,...).

Printers Spreads

• Definition: Printer's imposed order of pages. This differs from the reading order.

Bleed

• Definition: Overlap of printed area beyond the trimmed edge (1/8th to 1/4th inch).

Margin

• Definition: White border space around text, typically .25 to .5 inches from page edge.

Ligature

• Definition: Two or more letters joined to form a single glyph.

Text Wrap

• Definition: Feature in applications to put text around an image or diagram.

Drop Cap

• Definition: Large capital letter at the beginning of a paragraph or section.

Teasers

• Definition: Glimmer of content on magazine covers to pique reader interest.