Anatomy of Type
The Body of a Typeface
Good typography is art. Based on the construction of letterforms, the spacing between letters and lines of letters, you get very distinctive typefaces.
In this section, you will learn concepts that will help you discern what makes a typeface unique.
Table of Key Typeface Anatomy Terms
| Term | Definition |
| Ascender | the part of the character that goes above the mean line |
| Baseline | |
| Cap Height | the distance from the baseline to the top of the uppercase letters, such as H |
| Cap Line | the horizontal line determined by the top extremities of many lowercase letters, such as e, g, and y |
| Descender | the part of the character that goes below the baseline |
| Mean Line | the horizontal line determined by the top extremities of many lowercase letters, such as e, g, and y |
| Serif | the extra stroke at the ends of the character |
| Stress | An imaginary line drawn from top to bottom of a glyph bisecting the upper and lower strokes is the axis |
| Thick-Thin Constrast | the relationship between the thinnest and thickest parts of the strokes |
| Weight | ratio between the relative width of the strokes of letterforms and their height. On average, a letter of normal weight possesses a stroke width of approximately 15% of its height, where as bold is 20% and light is 10%. |
| Width | rational between the black vertical strokes of the letterforms and the intervals of white between them. A letter whose width if approximately 80% of its height is considered normal. A condensed width is 60% its height, expanded (or ultra wide) 100% or more. |
| X-height | the distance between the baseline and the mean line of the body of lowercase letters |
