Anatomy of letters

As the first day started, we learned about the meaning and basics of typography. we learned the meaning of typography and one for my peers nicely summed up that "typography is when you arrange letters in a way that it makes sense to the human eye and looks suitable in the layout" as we went forward, our faculty gave us an activity where we had to write our names on a piece of paper in any font style we wanted, I still don't know the propose of that activity but they told us that we would use the same piece of paper till the end of the module... so I am looking forward to it. After that we were shared a PDF by our faculty which summed up what are we going to learn this whole module and I was very intrigued by that i came across the process of typography which I noticed that it was very similar to design process we learned previously

 

 

we learned about our course outcome, what are we going to learn, what can we expect out of each of the day and most of all that 'the only way to true success to through a swamp full of failures, so it is okay to fail'. As the introduction was over we started with our day one of learning type anatomy and classification.

So, lets start with the anatomy to fonts, we all have went through our high school biology classes, bored and just want to get out of the class, but trust me the anatomy of fonts is not at all boring or full of weird long names. So, I would like to explain what handygloves are and what anatomy lessons can be derived out of it. 

 

 

Baseline is the invincible line that sits beneath the letters and indicates that the word is in a continuous path. Mean line is the also called as x-line you can find it where your lower case letters end and the height from the baseline to the mean line is called 'x' height. And lastly we come to the Cap-line, it is the line that can be found at the very top were your uppercase letters end and the height between the baseline and the cap-line is called Cap height.    

Lets now look into the basic vocabulary for the anatomy of fonts and trust me you won't see a obscure word in their. 

Lets understand the image above, the parts of the letter which are highlight by red are the parts that are specified to be named, the first term we see is a stem it is the basic exoskeleton from where the other curves and line start. Crossbar is the horizontal line that connects stems, the exception in crossbar is with the capital letter T were the crossbar is called Arms. Next we come to Diagonals, they are slanting lines that protrudes from the stem, the exceptions of diagonals are with capital Q and capital K which are called Tail and Legs respectively. Shoulder /Connector are the link that connects the stem with other curves and stems. Counters are the the negative space in the the letter and can be divided between Closed Counter and Open Counter. Bowl is the curve that beholds the negative spaces. S is the most unique letter which has a Spine like a human. Loop is the curve that continues down the letters and also creates negative space and lastly comes 'g' that has the most unique body part called as a Ear.

 

 The part of the letter that comes above the mean line are called Ascender and the part of the letter that goes beyond the baseline are called Descender. and the last part while discovering anatomy is called Overshoot, overshoots are some parts of the letter that tend to get out to the defined borders of the cap line and the baseline.

Every letter can sit into some of the basic shapes of geometry as we as see below 

Now, Lets move on to classification of those fonts and font families, 

• Serif 
• San Serif 
• Slab Serif
• Slur Serif 
• Script 
• Decorative

 To explain the classifications, first we have to understand what is a serif, it is a slight projection finishing off a stroke of a letter in certain typefaces. For example 

 

And San Serif  is exactly opposite of serif as its literal meaning is no serif in french. For example 

And as we get into the world of serifs we can come around a family called as Slur Serif, slur serif has a kind of a bulged / curved out serifs

After that we have Slab Serif, slab serif is exactly what it sounds like it has a blocky and slab kind of a serif, as we can see

Now, as we have explored the world of serifs (not in depth), lets see what script is, script is usually handwritten fonts or fonts which are in a continuity as in cursive font

 And Lastly, lets talk about Decorative font, decorative fonts are exaggerated form of font and sometimes also contain human figures, natural elements, etc to be used as a display