Graphics Design Blog: 2008

1. Font: In typography, a font (also fount) is traditionally defined as a complete character set of a single size of a particular typeface. For example, all characters for 9 point Bulmer is a font, and the 10 point size would be another font.

2. Type: To write (something) with a typewriter; typewrite.

3. Serif: A fine line finishing off the main strokes of a letter, as at the top and bottom of M.

4. San-Serif: A typeface without serifs. Also called gothic

5. Italics: a type of font tilting the selected letters to the right a little, usually used to show emphasis

6. Stroke: a punctuation mark (/) used to separate related items of information

7. Glyph: is a particular graphical representation, in a particular typeface, of a grapheme, or sometimes several graphemes in combination (a composed glyph), or a part of a grapheme. In computing as well as typography, the term character refers to a grapheme or grapheme-like unit of text, as found in natural language writing systems (scripts). It may be a letter, a numeral, a punctuation mark, or a pictographic or decorative symbol such as dingbats. A character or grapheme is an abstract unit of text, whereas a glyph is a graphical unit.

For example, the sequence ffi contains three characters, but can be represented by one glyph, the three characters being combined into a single unit known as a ligature.

8. Character: a. One of a set of symbols, such as letters or numbers, that are arranged to express information.

9. Script: 5. a typeface which looks like handwriting

10. Ligature: A cord, wire, or bandage used for tying or binding.

11. Justification: n typesetting, justification (can also be referred to as 'full justification') is the typographic alignment setting of text or images within a column or "measure" to align along both the left and right margin. Text set this way is said to be "justified".

12. Open Type Fonts: OpenType is a scalable format for computer fonts (also sometimes known interchangeably as "typefaces"), initially developed by Microsoft, later joined by Adobe Systems. OpenType was first announced in 1996, with a significant number of OpenType fonts starting to ship in 2000–2001. Adobe completed conversion of its entire font library to OpenType around the end of 2002. As of early 2005, there were around 10,000 fonts available in OpenType format, with Adobe's library making up under a third of the total. As of 2006, every major font foundry and many minor ones were developing fonts in OpenType format.

13. TrueType Fonts: TrueType is an outline font standard originally developed by Apple Computer in the late 1980s as a competitor to Adobe's Type 1 fonts used in PostScript. The primary strength of TrueType was originally that it offered font developers a high degree of control over precisely how their fonts are displayed, right down to particular pixels, at various font heights. (With widely varying rendering technologies in use today, pixel-level control is no longer certain.)

14. Post Script: 2. Additional information appended to the manuscript, as of a book or article.

15. Leading: In typography, leading (pronounced /ˈlɛdɪŋ/, rhymes with heading) refers to the amount of added vertical spacing between lines of type. In consumer-oriented word processing software, this concept is usually referred to as "line spacing". Leading may sometimes be confused with tracking, which refers to the horizontal spacing between letters or characters.

16. Kerning: In typography, kerning, or less commonly, mortising (referring to the process of physically removing material from the cast character), is the process of adjusting letter spacing in a proportional font. In a well-kerned font, the two-dimensional blank spaces between each pair of letters all have similar area.

17.Tracking: letter-spacing, also called tracking, refers to the amount of space between a group of letters to affect density in a line or block of text. Since the advent of personal computers the term tracking is frequently used. In professional typography and graphic design the term letter-spacing is more commonly used.