Typography Vocabulary

Bold - A typeface with thicker strokes than regular, roman text is called bold type. Bold is used for emphasis to make certain words and phrases stand out from surrounding text. Although bold type can be created "on-the-fly" in software programs, true bold type is a distinctly drawn digital typeface that works as a companion to other non-bold fonts of the same family.

Font - The term font, a doublet of the word fondue, derives from Middle French fonte, meaning "(something that has been) melt(ed)", referring to type produced by casting molten metal at a type foundry. English-speaking printers have used the term fount for centuries to refer to the multi-part metal type used to assemble and print in a particular size and typeface.

Italic - A (mostly) slanted type style which takes its basic shapes from a stylised form of handwriting, and is usually narrower than its roman counterpart. Italics are commonly used for emphasis in text. They are primarily found in serif designs, while obliques originally were associated with sans serifs.

Kerning – The process of adjusting the spacing between characters in a word to make the appearance of the letters together more pleasing.

Line Spacing or Leading - Line spacing is still often called "leading", because the strips used for line spacing were made of lead (rather than the harder alloy used for other pieces). The reason for this spacing strip being made from "lead" was because lead was a softer metal than the traditional forged metal type pieces (which was part lead, antimony and tin) and would compress more easily when "locked-up" in the printing "chase" (i.e. a carrier for holding all the type together).

Pixel - Pixel fonts are modular type designs that take advantage of the pixel grid to render often very small type on screen. They are very popular in web design, but also became an aesthetic on their own.

Point Size – The size of a font or character. 12pt is average for a typical word document.

Postscript – The computer language used to printout fonts and graphics on laser printers and other forms of printing.

Rasterization – Task of taking an image described in vector graphics format (shapes) and converting it to a raster image (pixels or dots) for printing or displaying.

Sans Serif - A typeface without serifs is called sans serif or sans-serif, from the French sans, meaning “without”. Many magazines employ sans serif typefaces, as some editors state that they are "cleaner", regardless of any impact on readability from the lack of serifs.

Serif - In typography, serifs are semi-structural details on the ends of some of the strokes that make up letters and symbols. A typeface with serifs is called a serif typeface (or serifed typeface). Serif fonts are widely used in traditional printed material such as books and newspapers.

Spacing – Uniformly changing the distance between characters in a word.

TrueType – Outline font standard developed by Apple in 1980s to compete with other fonts used in Postscript. It became the most common format for fonts. A n easily scalable format allowing designers to easily change a font’s shape and size while keeping the characteristics of the font down to the pixil.

Typeface - An artistic interpretation, or design, of a collection of alphanumeric symbols. A typeface may include letters, numerals, punctuation, various symbols, and more — often for multiple languages. A typeface is usually grouped together in a family containing individual fonts for italic, bold, and other variations of the primary design.

Typography - The art and technique of printing with movable type. The composition of printed material from movable type. 2. The arrangement and appearance of printed matter.

Weight - The weight of a particular font is the thickness of the character outlines relative to their height.

Online Typography Resources http://ilovetypography.com/ http://fontfeed.com/ http://letritas.blogspot.com/ - In Spanish http://nicewebtype.com/ http://www.typeforyou.org/