Background 01.01: What is Typography?

Goal

This goal of this doc­u­ment is to estab­lish the con­text for cur­rent course content.

Objective

Com­plete the Back­ground Read­ing and define the Vocab­u­lary spec­i­fied below. Writ­ten, ver­bal and visual iden­ti­fi­ca­tion and uti­liza­tion is required.

Background Reading

  • Bringhurst, p 1–24.
  • Dab­ner, p 62–91
  • Kane, p 1–73.

Vocabulary

  • Align­ment
  • Anatomy
  • Base­line
  • Cen­tered
  • Con­trast
  • Ear­mark
  • Egypt­ian or Slab Serif
  • Font
  • Geo­met­ric Sans Serif
  • Hier­ar­chy
  • Human­ist Old Style Serif
  • Human­ist Sans Serif
  • Hyphen­ation
  • Jus­ti­fi­ca­tion
  • Jus­ti­fied
  • Kern­ing
  • Lead­ing
  • Let­terspac­ing or Tracking
  • Lin­guis­tic
  • Mea­sure
  • Mod­ern Serif
  • Opti­cal adjustment
  • Orna­ments
  • Pan­els
  • Pica
  • Point size
  • Ranged (flush) left or right
  • Sans serif
  • Seman­tics
  • Serif
  • Stress/axis
  • Syn­tax
  • Tran­si­tional Serif
  • Type­face
  • Typo­graphic Rules
  • x‑height
  • Apex
  • Arm
  • Ascen­der
  • Barb
  • Beak
  • Bold­face
  • Bowl
  • Bracket
  • Cap height
  • Con­densed
  • Counter
  • Cross Bar
  • Cross Stroke
  • Crotch
  • Descen­der
  • Ding­bats
  • Ear
  • Em
  • En
  • Extended
  • Finial
  • Italic
  • Leg
  • Lig­a­ture
  • Light
  • Link
  • Loop
  • Low­er­case
  • Low­er­case (non-lin­ing) numerals
  • Median
  • Pica
  • Point size
  • Points
  • Punc­tu­a­tion
  • Roman
  • Shoul­der
  • Small Cap­i­tals
  • Spine
  • Spur
  • Stem
  • Stress
  • Stroke
  • Swash
  • Tail
  • Ter­mi­nal
  • Type fam­ily
  • Upper­case
  • Upper­case (lin­ing) numerals
  • Ver­tex
  • Set Width
  • Black­let­ter
  • Italic
  • Mod­ern
  • Old­style
  • Sans Serif
  • Script
  • Semi-serif
  • Square Serif
  • Tran­si­tional

Bibliography

Bringhurst, Robert, The Ele­ments of Typo­graphic Style. 3rd Edi­tion, Hart­ley and Marks Pub­lish­ers: 2005. ISBN-10: 0881792063; ISBN-13: 978–0881792065

Dab­ner, David; The New Graphic Design School; John Wiley & Sons Inc; Fourth Ed, 2009; ISBN-10: 0470466510 ISBN-13: 978–0470466513

Kane, John; A Type Primer;Pren­tice Hall. 2003. ISBN-10: 013099071X; ISBN-13: 978–0130990716

Kane, John; A Type Primer; Lawrence King; 2nd Revised edi­tion: 2011; ISBN-10: 1856696448; ISBN-13: 978–1856696449