Typeface Anatomy - wikipedia Typeface Anatomy Typographic parts of a glyph : 1 ) x-height ; 2 ) ascender line ; 3 ) apex ; 4 ) baseline ; 5 ) ascender ; 6 ) crossbar ; 7 ) stem ; 8 ) serif ; 9 ) leg ; 10 ) bowl ; 11 ) counter ; 12 ) collar / link / neck ; 13 ) loop ; 14 ) ear ; 15 ) tie ; 16 ) horizontal bar ; 17 ) arm ; 18 ) vertical bar ; 19 ) cap height ; 20 ) descender line. Typeface anatomy describes the graphic elements that make up printed letters in a typeface. Contents 1 Strokes 2 Terminals 3 Space 4 Proportions 5 Metal type era 6 See also 7 References 8 Further reading 9 External links Strokes The strokes are the components of a letterform. Strokes may be straight, as in klvwxz, or curved, as in cos. If straight, they may be horizontal, vertical, or diagonal ; if curved, open or closed. Typographers also speak of an instroke, where one starts writing the letter, as at the top of acf, and an outstroke, where the pen leaves off, as at the bottom of cejkty. 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 be measurably taller. The two strokes in an X are n'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 ad is n't the same length as the descender on ap, 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. Hoefler & Frere - Jones A main vertical stroke is called a stem. The letter m has three, the left, middle, and right stems. The central stroke of an s is called the spine. When the stroke is part of a lowercase and rises above the height of an x ( called the x height ), it is called an ascender. Letters with ascenders are bdfhkl. A stroke which drops below the baseline is a descender. Letters with descenders are gjpqy. An arching stroke is called a shoulder as in the top of an R or sometimes just an arch, as in hnm. A closed curved stroke is called a bowl in bdopq DOPQ ; B has two bowls. A trailing outstroke, as in jy JQR is called a tail. The inferior diagonal stroke in K is called leg. A short horizontal stroke, as in the center of ef and the middle stroke of EF, is called a bar. When the strokes connect as in A and H or cross strokes as in t is also known as crossbar. A longer horizontal stroke at the top or bottom, as in ET, is called an arm. The bottom of the two - story g is called a loop ; the very short stroke at the top is called the ear. ij each have a dot, jot, or tittle. Angles of strokes are called apices if at the top and vertices if at the bottom. w has one apex and two vertices ; v has one vertex. The font shown in the example is stressed : 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. Terminals The terminals ( ends ) of instrokes and outstrokes often end in serif or sans - serif. A seriffed terminal may be described as a wedge, bulbous, teardrop, slab, etc., depending on the design of the type. Sorting typefaces can be practical based on its look. A clue feature is to define the serif style. Some designs also have spurs, which are smaller than serifs and appear on angles rather than at a terminal, as on e or G. Space Areas of negative space ( white space ) formed by straight or curved strokes are called counters. Closed counters are found in abdegopq ABDOPQR, and open counters in acefhmnrstu. The close counter in e is also named eye. Angles of white space, as in w, are corners ( 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 serif bracket. Proportions A subtle change in proportion impacts weight, perception, measure, and legibility. The letterform height compared to its stroke width modifies the aspect ; this slight change in weight sometimes helps to create emphasis. The disparity between thick and thin strokes, known as stress, alters optical perception. As an example, the initial san serif typefaces used a constantly thin stroke. The technological advances allow drawing thinner strokes. Condense type occupies less space than expanded type, then the text written on a page can be reduced to half a page. The capline and x-height ratio improve or decrease word legibility. Metal type era During the late metal type period, many fonts ( particularly in American typefounding ) were issued to `` common line ''. 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 most digital fonts. 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 cropped descenders 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. See also Type design Type foundry Typography Typesetting References Jump up ^ Studer, Anton ( 29 February 2016 ). `` Is What I See What I Get ? -- Math & Optics in Type Design ''. Typographica. Retrieved 17 April 2016. ^ Jump up to : Carter, Bob ; Day, Ben ; Meggs, Philip ( 2007 ). Typographic Design : Form and Communication. United States of America : John Wiley & Sons. p. 31. ISBN 9780471783909. Jump up ^ Pecina, Martin ; Březina, David ( 2008 ). `` Type Anatomy 1.0 ''. Typomil. Jump up ^ `` Introducing Ideal Sans ''. Fonts by Hoefler & Co. 4 May 2011. Jump up ^ Bosler, Denise ( 2012 - 05 - 16 ). Mastering Type : The Essential Guide to Typography for Print and Web Design. F + W Media, Inc. p. 31. ISBN 1440313717. individual parts such as the spine of the S ^ Jump up to : Dean, Paul ( 11 April 2008 ). `` eXtreme Type Terminology. Part Three : The ' Black Art ' ''. I Love Typography. ^ Jump up to : Collen, Stephen. `` Anatomy of Type : A Graphic Guide to 100 typefaces. '' Harper Design, 2013. ^ Jump up to : Dean, Paul ( 27 March 2008 ). `` eXtreme Type Terminology. Part 2 : Anatomy of a Letterform ''. I Love Typography. Further reading Gaskell, Philip ( January 1976 ). `` A nomenclature for the letterforms of roman type ''. Visible Language. 10 ( 1 ) : 41 -- 51. External links Wikimedia Commons has media related to Examples of typography terms. Armannsson, Sigurdur ( 6 July 2009 ). `` Wallpaper : Font Anatomy ''. Font.is. Full - size image ( 1920 × 1200 ) Dean, Paul ( 2008 ). eXtreme Type Terminology -- Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4 and Part 5 Devroye, Luc. `` Hoefler & Frere - Jones ''. Retrieved 21 January 2015. Frere - Jones, Tobias. `` Typeface Mechanics : 001 ''. Frere - Jones Type. Retrieved 17 April 2016. Frere - Jones, Tobias. `` Typeface Mechanics : 002 ''. Frere - Jones Type. Retrieved 17 April 2016. Coles, Stephen. `` The Anatomy of Type ''. Blog for Coles ' 2012 book The Anatomy of Type : A Graphic Guide to 100 Typefaces. `` Glossary ''. FontShop. Monotype. Typography terminology Page Canons of page construction Column Even working Margin Page numbering Pagination Pull quote Recto and verso Paragraph Alignment Justification Leading River Sentence spacing Widows and orphans Character Typeface anatomy Counter Diacritics Dingbat Glyph Initial Kerning Letter - spacing Ligature Subscript and superscript Swash Text figures Tittle Capitalization ALL CAPS Camel Case Letter case Petite caps Small caps Visual distinction Italics Oblique Bold Color Underline Blackboard bold Blackletter Infɑnt Vertical aspects Ascender Baseline Cap height Descender Median Overshoot x-height Classifications Roman type Antiqua ( old style ) Didone ( modern ) Sans - serif Script Serif Slab serif Transitional Reverse - contrast Blackletter type Fraktur Rotunda Schwabacher Textualis Gaelic type Insular Uncial Specialist Record type Punctuation Dashes Hanging punctuation Hyphen - minus Hyphenation Prime mark Quotation mark Typesetting Calligraphy etaoin shrdlu Font computer monospaced Font catalog Letterpress Lorem ipsum Microtypography Movable type Pangram Phototypesetting Punchcutting Type color Type design Typeface Microprint list Typographic units Agate Cicero Em En Figure space Measure Paren space Pica Point traditional point - size names Thin space Digital typography Character encoding Font formats Hinting Rasterization Typesetting software Typographic features Web typography Related Intentionally blank page Style guide Type foundry Commons Portal Retrieved from `` https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Typeface_anatomy&oldid=835865029 '' Categories : Typography Talk Contents About Wikipedia Polski Русский Edit links This page was last edited on 11 April 2018, at 07 : 14. 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Question: what is the cross on a letter t called
Answer: crossbar; arm; crossbar; crossbar; crossbar