Glyphs

Approach

Approach is the space between 2 characters, also called letter spacing. Not to be confused with line spacing, which is the space between 2 lines in the same paragraph.

Attack

It is the starting point of the letter stroke.

Axis

It is the axis of symmetry of the letter determining the distribution of thick and thin strokes. It can be perfectly vertical (as in O or U), inclined (as in N or X) or horizontal (as in C or D).

Whites

There are several types of white space in typography.

Turning Whites

It is the management of white spaces surrounding textual and iconographic elements. When properly balanced, they allow you to open up a composition and improve readability.

Footer White

It is the margin at the bottom of the page. It can accommodate captions, page numbering, graphic elements or annotations. It improves readability and opens up text that can sometimes be dense.

Header White

It is the margin at the top of the page. It can accommodate captions, page numbering, graphic elements or annotations. It improves readability and opens up text that can sometimes be dense.

Small Back Margin

It is the margin inside the 2 pages in a book. It can accommodate captions, page numbering, graphic elements or annotations. It improves readability and opens up text that can sometimes be dense.

Large Back Margin

It is the margin inside the 2 pages in a book. It can accommodate captions, page numbering, graphic elements or annotations. It improves readability and opens up text that can sometimes be dense.

Historically, large back margins are quite large to leave room for the reader to place their fingers.

Character

A character is the typographic sign or element that makes up typography (letters, numerals, punctuation, spaces, etc.). The character is extremely important because without this typographic sign, we cannot read texts.

You must be careful, when designing websites for example, that the glyphs are adequate, meaning that all the characters used are present in the font. It would be unfortunate to have an e-commerce site without the € or $ symbol if the typeface does not contain them.

Case

These are uppercase letters, small capitals or lowercase letters.

The case was originally the wooden box in which lead characters were stored in printing houses. Lowercase letters were stored in "lower case."

Set Width

It is the width of the letter, including its approach.

Counter

It is the enclosed interior space of the letter.

Counter Form

It is the enclosed interior space of the letter.

Body Size

It is the height of the characters.

Serif

A serif is the foot of the stem creating a reading line. It can take various forms: Antique, Old Roman, Modern Roman, or Egyptian.

Flush Left / Flush Right

It is the alignment of lines regular on the left, irregular on the right. It is also the justification of the text block on the left or right. Not to be confused with justification, which optimizes the text with the same width on each line.

See the typography section for examples.

Stem

It is the upward part of the letter.

Teardrop

These are the set of curves forming a teardrop at the end of letters.

Gutter

It is the vertical space separating two or more columns of text. Not to be confused with columns, which are the guides containing graphic elements (typography, graphics, illustrations, all types of content).

Typographic Gray

It is the color of a text block, in the sense of its density and not its hue. It is the overall appearance left by the text, especially when looking at it with squinted eyes. Pleasant-to-read text has uniform gray. It means the text is well organized, paragraphs are homogeneous, and it ensures the page is optimized.

Stem

It is the upward or downward stem of the letter.

Line Spacing

It is the space between 2 lines of characters in the same paragraph. Not to be confused with letter spacing or approach.

X-Height

It is the space between the 2 reading lines, ascending and descending, forming the height of the letter excluding the overhang of bowls, stems, and capitals.

Stem

It is the stem of a letter.

Bowl

It is the outline of the counter.

Thick and Thin Strokes

It is the thick part (thick stroke) or thin part (thin stroke) of the (calligraphic) letter imitating pen writing.

Crossbar

These are the horizontal lines of letters (middle bar of the "e").

Typeface or Font

A complete assortment of characters from the same family, comprising 256 characters (lowercase, capitals, punctuation, numerals, accented characters, special characters, etc.).

Each typeface can be more or less complete depending on the number of characters it contains.

One of the most well-known and complete is Helvetica, composed of 51 fonts and present on an incalculable number of logos, among the most famous in the world. It remains one of the most widely used typefaces in the world and enjoys the favor of designers and typographers.