Choosing letters: typefaces and their families, how big type is measured, and the extra letters hidden inside a font.
Also: type family
A typeface is the design of a set of letters, such as Newsreader or Garamond. A font is one version of it, such as Newsreader Bold, which in practice means one file. All the fonts of a typeface together are its family.
One design, Newsreader, in four versions. Together they are one typeface.
Also: sans
Serifs are the small strokes that finish the ends of letters. A serif typeface has them; a sans serif typeface (sans is French for without) does not.
Newsreader. Look at the feet of the letters: each stroke ends in a small flared stroke, the serif.
Also: body type, text face, display face
Text type is drawn for paragraphs at reading sizes, about 8 to 14 pt: sturdy and plain enough to read for an hour. Display type is drawn for headings and titles, where it is big enough for fine detail and character to show.
At five in the morning the harbour is still dark, and the only light on the water comes from the wheelhouse of the Mary Ellen. Her skipper has worked these oyster beds for forty years. He says the tide tells him more than any forecast.
Newsreader, a text face: sturdy strokes and open spacing that stay clear at 15 px for paragraph after paragraph.
How thick a typeface’s strokes are, from Thin or Light through Regular to Bold and Black. Each weight is a font in the family, and weights are numbered 100 to 900, with Regular at 400 and Bold at 700.
Harbour
Twelve harbours and the people who keep them working
Only the thickness of the strokes changes; the letters keep their shapes. Body text sits at Regular, and Semibold or Bold picks out a heading or a key word.
Also: true italic
A sloping style drawn as its own set of letters, with shapes the upright (roman) letters do not have. It marks titles, foreign words and examples within running text.
EB Garamond Italic: new letters, drawn with a pen’s rhythm. The a loses its hook, the f swings below the line.
Also: type size, pt
How big type is set, in points: 72 points make an inch, so 1 pt is about 0.35 mm. It measures the body each letter sits on, from above its tallest letter to below its deepest, so two typefaces at the same size can look quite different.
Point size is the height of the body each letter is cast on, top of the box to bottom: no single letter is that tall. Book text is usually 9 to 12 pt. A screen only approximates printed sizes.
Also: cap height
The height of the lowercase letters without their tall or deep strokes: the height of an x. Most of what we read is lowercase, so a typeface with a large x-height looks bigger at the same point size. The height of the capitals is the cap height.
Both at the same point size. EB Garamond’s x-height is 40% of the body, so its lowercase looks smaller and more bookish.
An ascender is the part of a lowercase letter that rises above the x-height, as in b, d, h and l. A descender is the part that drops below the baseline, the line the letters sit on, as in g, p and y.
The stems of h and d rise above the x-height. In most typefaces they also rise a little above the capitals.
Also: tabular numbers, monospaced figures
Figures are the digits 0 to 9. Tabular figures all have the same width, so numbers line up in columns; proportional figures each have their own width, so they sit evenly in a sentence.
Tram 28 · weekdays
Every digit is the same width, so the tens of minutes all fall inside the red band and the minutes line up under each other.
Two or three letters drawn as one shape, so they don’t collide: most often fi, fl, ff, ffi and ffl. A good font has them and swaps them in as you type.
The f’s hook and the dot of the i become one drawn shape. EB Garamond has fi, fl, ff, ffi and ffl.
Also: optical sizes, opsz
Versions of a typeface drawn for different sizes: small sizes get sturdier strokes and looser spacing, large sizes finer details. Some fonts change automatically with the size they are set at.
Velocipede
Fig. 3. A safety bicycle of 1888, with a chain and two equal wheels.
The small-size drawing: sturdier hairlines, wider letters, looser spacing. Blown up, it looks heavy; in a caption, it stays clear.