a man who would letterspace lowercase would steal sheep

#A man who would letterspace lowercase would steal sheep skin#
#A man who would letterspace lowercase would steal sheep free#

Many font styles are missing from the key system of typeface classification called VOX, named after the Frenchman, Maximilien Vox. The most common method is the one introduced by Adobe which you can see in the picture below. However, many people and companies have tried hard to describe and classify typefaces. This was a quite eccentric way to introduce fonts and typeface classification! What you see here is geographical map that the newspaper, The Guardian, published in 1977 as a special report of the Islands SAN SERIFFE. When you get to know somebody, after looking at him/her and asking a few general questions about work and life, you will probably ask where he/she comes from, trying to identify his/her nationality.

SERIF: a little extra stroke, useful to differentiate a Serif font from a Sans Serif. SPINE: the main left to right curving stroke in 's'. STEM: the main vertical stroke of a letterform.ĬROSS BAR: the horizontal stroke across the middle of uppercase 'A, B, H'.ĬOUNTER AND EYE: the enclosed or partially enclosed circular or curved negative space (white space) of some letters such as 'd, o' the eye refers specifically to the enclosed space in a lowercase 'e'.īOWL: the curved part of the character that encloses the circular or curved parts of letters like 'd, b' or the capital 'B' you see in the word 'Bones'. Moving deeper, we can analyse what I call the Bones of a typeface. X-HEIGHT: the height of the lowercase letters, typically represented by the letter x a typeface with a big x-height looks bigger than a typeface with a small x-height, but both are the same size.ĪSCENDER HEIGHT: the top line that the tallest letters, like 'k' of the word 'skin' and the 'd' of the word 'body', touch usually it slightly extends over the cap height.ĭESCENDER HEIGHT: the bottom line that the lowest part of lowercase letters touch, below the baseline, as can be seen with the letter 'y' of the word 'body'.īASELINE: the line where all the letters sit this is a crucial element in order to align text with images and other content.ĬAP HEIGHT: the distance from the baseline to the top of the capital letter it determines the letter's point size.

#A man who would letterspace lowercase would steal sheep skin#

Let’s start with the external parts, as I call them, the Skin and Body. I have provided you with different links for further reading at the end of the page, under Resources.

We will consider just a few elements because this is not the main subject of this article. It can sound a bit poetic, but typeface designers look at fonts as “small creatures” with specific “eyes”, “shoulders”, “necks”, and “ears”, just to mention some terms. Some of them have the suggestive names of real parts of the human body! Knowing the anatomy of typeface is really important to identifying it. So before we start talking about the “character” of a typeface, let’s first identify some “physical” elements that determine the specific typeface’s appearance:

Well, I don’t want to give the impression of being a superficial person, but let’s face the truth: appearance plays a big role in our daily lives! And this can happen also with typeface!Įach typeface has its own personality and this is something you can understand from the way it looks. The same man with a Rastafarian hairstyle and a psychedelic shirt wouldn’t give you the same feeling, right? You would think you were at the wrong place.or even more likely, he is in the wrong office! If you see a man in his perfect grey suit behind the desk at your insurance company, you feel you can trust him because he looks serious and reliable. Appearance is something really important that helps us relate to other people. You can understand a person by the way he/she moves, talks or dresses. If you have never thought about it, you should consider reading this article carefully! Looking at Typeface So before we pack our “font suitcase” it is good to really know what our task is and what kind of message we want to communicate. It’s like going on vacation and deciding what it is best to take with us. Not even for the most experienced web and graphic designers. But choosing a typeface is not easy or obvious.

#A man who would letterspace lowercase would steal sheep free#

There are many websites now that sell or distribute free fonts available for the web. Suddenly web designers had access to typeface as never before.