Typography is the art and technique of arranging type to make written language legible, readable and appealing when displayed. The arrangement of type involves selecting typefaces, point sizes, line lengths, line-spacing (leading), and letter-spacing (tracking), as well as adjusting the space between pairs of letters (kerning). The term typography is also applied to the style, arrangement, and appearance of the letters, numbers, and symbols created by the process. Type design is a closely related craft, sometimes considered part of typography; most typographers do not design typefaces, and some type designers do not consider themselves typographers. Typography also may be used as an ornamental and decorative device, unrelated to the communication of information.
Type design is the art and process of designing typefaces. This involves drawing each letterform using a consistent style. The basic concepts and design variables are described below.
In typography, a serif is a small line or stroke regularly attached to the end of a larger stroke in a letter or symbol within a particular font or family of fonts. A typeface or "font family" making use of serifs is called a serif typeface, and a typeface that does not include them is sans-serif. Some typography sources refer to sans-serif typefaces as "grotesque" or "Gothic", and serif typefaces as "roman".
A typeface is the design of lettering that can include variations in size, weight, slope, width, and so on. Each of these variations of the typeface is a font.
Arial is a sans-serif typeface and set of computer fonts in the neo-grotesque style. Fonts from the Arial family are included with all versions of Microsoft Windows from Windows 3.1 on, some other Microsoft software applications, Apple's macOS and many PostScript 3 computer printers. The typeface was designed in 1982, by Robin Nicholas and Patricia Saunders, for Monotype Typography. Each of its characters has the same width as that character in the popular typeface Helvetica; the purpose of this design is to allow a document designed in Helvetica to be displayed and printed with the intended line-breaks and page-breaks without a Helvetica license. Because of their almost identical appearances, both Arial and Helvetica have commonly been mistaken for each other.
In typography, emphasis is the strengthening of words in a text with a font in a different style from the rest of the text, to highlight them. It is the equivalent of prosody stress in speech.
In typography, italic type is a cursive font based on a stylised form of calligraphic handwriting. Owing to the influence from calligraphy, italics normally slant slightly to the right. Italics are a way to emphasise key points in a printed text, to identify many types of creative works, to cite foreign words or phrases, or, when quoting a speaker, a way to show which words they stressed. One manual of English usage described italics as "the print equivalent of underlining"; in other words, underscore in a manuscript directs a typesetter to use italic.
In typography, leading is the space between adjacent lines of type; the exact definition varies.
Courier is a monospaced slab serif typeface. The typeface was designed by Howard "Bud" Kettler (1919–1999). Initially created for IBM's typewriters, it has been adapted for use as a computer font, and versions of it are installed on most desktop computers.
Text figures are numerals designed with varying heights in a fashion that resembles a typical line of running text, hence the name. They are contrasted with lining figures, which are the same height as upper-case letters. Georgia is an example of a popular typeface that employs text figures by default.
In European and West Asian typography and penmanship, the baseline is the line upon which most letters sit and below which descenders extend.
Trebuchet MS is a humanist sans-serif typeface that Vincent Connare designed for Microsoft Corporation in 1996. Trebuchet MS was the font used for the window titles in the Windows XP default theme, succeeding MS Sans Serif and Tahoma. Released free of charge by Microsoft as part of their core fonts for the Web package, it remained one of the most popular body text fonts on webpages as of 2009.
Caslon is the name given to serif typefaces designed by William Caslon I (c. 1692–1766) in London, or inspired by his work.
Modern typographers view typography as a craft with a very long history tracing its origins back to the first punches and dies used to make seals and coinage currency in ancient times. The basic elements of typography are at least as old as civilization and the earliest writing systems—a series of key developments that were eventually drawn together into one systematic craft. While woodblock printing and movable type had precedents in East Asia, typography in the Western world developed after the invention of the printing press by Johannes Gutenberg in the mid-15th century. The initial spread of printing throughout Germany and Italy led to the enduring legacy and continued use of blackletter, roman, and italic types.
Joanna is a serif typeface designed by Eric Gill (1882–1940) in the period 1930–31, and named for one of his daughters. Gill chose Joanna for setting An Essay on Typography, a book by Gill on his thoughts on typography, typesetting, and page design. He described it as "a book face free from all fancy business".
Caledonia is a serif typeface designed by William Addison Dwiggins in 1938 for the Mergenthaler Linotype Company and commonly used in book design. As a transitional serif design, one inspired by the Scotch Roman typefaces of the early nineteenth century, Caledonia has a contrasting design of alternating thick and thin strokes, a design that stresses the vertical axis and sharp, regular serifs on ascenders and descenders.
A subscript or superscript is a character that is set slightly below or above the normal line of type, respectively. It is usually smaller than the rest of the text. Subscripts appear at or below the baseline, while superscripts are above. Subscripts and superscripts are perhaps most often used in formulas, mathematical expressions, and specifications of chemical compounds and isotopes, but have many other uses as well.
Typeface anatomy describes the graphic elements that make up letters in a typeface.
Peter Karow is a German entrepreneur, inventor and software developer. He holds several patents in the field of desktop publishing and is known for his work on computer fonts. He contributed with several books and patents to the development of operating systems for computers. He is recognized as the inventor of outline computer fonts.
Rusher's Patent Types were the characters of an experimental serif typeface invented, patented and promoted by Philip Rusher in Banbury, England, from 1802 onwards. The typeface removed the descenders from the lower-case letters and shortened the ascenders, which Rusher hoped would make the typeface "more uniform" and save paper. The typeface was used for a few books but did not become popular.
