Typography

For Complete
Beginners
JM Sibayan
 Typography
For Complete
Beginners

JM Sibayan
This page is intentionally left blank.
 i CONTENTS CONTENTS i

1 What is Typography?

5 Font or Typeface?

12 Type Anatomy

18 Classifications of Type

Typography For Complete Beginners Just My Type! BASICS OF TYPOGRAPHY

What is
Typography?

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 2 WHAT IS TYPOGRAPHY?

In the most basic sense,

typography is the art of
arranging letters and/or
words that can either be

Functional,
Typography For Complete Beginners
 WHAT IS TYPOGRAPHY? 3

Aesthetic,
Clockwise:
Nicole Honeywill,
Bryan Patrick Todd,
Dan Cassaro,
Jens Mahnke

Typography For Complete Beginners

 4 WHAT IS TYPOGRAPHY?

or
Clockwise:
Felix Pfäffli,
Layla Jama,
Farah Rezaee,
Tomasz Nowak

Expressive.
Typography For Complete Beginners
Font or
Typeface?

Aileron, Arial, Avenir, Baskerv

Bebas Neue, Bodoni, Claren

2
Crimson, Futura, Georgia, Gi
Gotham, Helvetica, Josefin S
Lato, Montserrat, Noah, Noto
Open Sans, Poppins, Quicksa
Roboto, Source Sans, Tahom
Times New Roman, Univers
 6 FONT OR TYPEFACE?

BODONI
A stylish and affluent typeface.

POPPINS
A friendly and modern typeface.

Nadja Mataya
ROBOTO
A simple and functional typeface.

Typefaces are composed of different

font styles, font weights, and font sizes.
We choose a typeface for its distinctive
e, characteristics from other typefaces.
on,
son
ns,
Sans,
nd, Typography For Complete Beginners

a,
 FONT OR TYPEFACE? 7

 Poppins was made

by the Indian Type
Foundry back in 2014.

u
Thin
The ITF specializes
in developing retail
and custom Unicode-
compliant digital fonts.

 The ITF had also made

other typefaces such

u
as Blonde Script, Folito,
Bega, and many others.

Extrahin

 Poppins and Akhand Tamil

Display (for Tamil language)
are the only free fonts in ITF’s
website. You can find them
at indiantypefoundry.com.

u
Hairline

Akhand Tamil Display

by The Indian Type Foundry

Typography For Complete Beginners

 8 FONT OR TYPEFACE?

TYPEFACE

Gill Sans:
The Humble
A font, however, like a
song from an album, or a
recipe from a cookbook.
It’s all the different looks,

Humanist
styles, and other compo-
nents you may find in a
single typeface.

Light 15pt
Regular 20pt

Semibold 25pt

Bold 30pt

Ultrabold
We choose a font for
how we want a typeface
to function. 35pt

Typography For Complete Beginners

 FONT OR TYPEFACE? 9

Catch Montserrat Black 86pt

Attention.
Complement Your Headline. Georgia 30pt

Choose a font for the body text

that’s easy on the eyes, is legible,
and goes well with the rest of
your typographical elements. Montserrat 15pt

Typography For Complete Beginners

10 FONT OR TYPEFACE?

And I don’t blame you.

It all started when metal blocks were used to

print letters, which was called “movable type.”
Johannes Gutenberg was the first to invent the
movable type system in the mid 1400s.
You’re These metal blocks of letters were coated with

probably ink, and they were arranged in any way to form

words and sentences. They were then pressed

asking:
against paper, making the letters look clear and
accurate. There were several thousands of them,
and each of them had different “faces” (hence
“Why do the name type face). So if you wanted to print
out your text in Clarendon, you should have

websites different blocks for every point size and weight

(10 point bold, 16 point italic, and more).

still use To summarize, a typeface would be Clarendon,

while having the fonts as its different sizes and
the term weights. So Clarendon in 18 point is a different
font from bolded Clarendon in 12 point.

‘fonts’?”
ABCDEFGHI
JKLMNOPQR
ST U V W X Y Z
abcdefghi
jklmnopqr
stuvwxyz
012 3 4 5 6 78 9
Photo courtesy of Shakespeare’s Globe
.,;:$#’!”/?%&() Clarendon Bold 16pt

Typography For Complete Beginners

 FONT OR TYPEFACE? 11

Fast forward to the digital age.

Many of the fonts we know today

aren’t blocks of type anymore, and
are these files that you can download
into your computer. You can scale
them however you like (but please
don’t stretch them!) or change their
color and their weights, all within
few simple clicks.

Does it matter?
It depends.
As long as you’re familiar with its history,
and how they were used, you shouldn’t
run into major problems when it comes
to typography. However, if you want to
dedicate your life to typography or being
a typeface designer, you should at least
The Macintosh 128K
Photo from Wikipedia know their differences.

Typography For Complete Beginners

Type
Anatomy

3
 TYPE ANATOMY 13

STEM
The main vertical part
of the stroke.

COUNTER
The closed (or partially
closed) part of a letter.

TERMINAL
The end of a stroke.

SPUR
Tiny extentions from
strokes which aren’t serifs.

BOWL
The closed and
rounded part of a letter.

SERIF
Small line added to the
letter’s stroke.

Typography For Complete Beginners

 14 TYPE ANATOMY

EAR
BODY PARTS The decorative extention
found in a lowercase g.

ARM
The stroke that runs up
diagonally from the stem.

LEG
The stroke that runs down
diagonally from the stem.

EYE
The closed space
inside a lowercase e.

TAIL
A decorative descender.

SHOULDER
A curved stroke running
downward from the stem.

SPINE
A curved stroke running
from left to right.

Typography For Complete Beginners

 TYPE ANATOMY 15

X-HEIGHT ASCENDER
Generally the height of most A part of a lowercase letter that
lowercase letters, based on extends beyond the x-height.
the letter x.

BASELINE DESCENDER
An imaginary line where A part of a lowercase letter that
the letters sit. extends below the baseline.

CAP HEIGHT
The height of uppercase letters.

METRICS

Jackdaws love my
big sphinx of quartz.

Typography For Complete Beginners

16 TYPE ANATOMY

GLYPHS
Letters that have extra
symbols and are used in
languages like German,
Polish and Spanish.

Hola,
aàáâãäåȁȃ
èéêëęȇȩȅḛ

señor!
ìíîïĩīįȉȋḭỉị�ñ
òóôõöǫǭǿ
ùúûüȕȗṹủ�
ŷȳẏẙỳỵỷỹ

Vad är klockan? What time is it?

Unu și jumătate. It’s half past one.

Dankeschön! Thank you!

Typography For Complete Beginners

Classifications
of Type

4
18 CLASSIFICATIONS OF TYPE

Let’s get one thing

clear first:

Ham
Abril Fatface
Cheese Aileron

Ham
Crimson
Cheese Avenir

Ham
Rockwell
Cheese Lato

Ham
Times New Roman
Cheese Helvetica

These are serif These are sans serif

typefaces. typefacess.

Typography For Complete Beginners

 CLASSIFICATIONS OF TYPE 19

Serifs typefaces can be

used if you want your
design to look classy,
established or traditional.

They are often used in

textbooks, magazines
and newspapers.

Deanna Taylor Shine Wedding Invitations

Philippine Daily Inquirer

Typography For Complete Beginners

20 CLASSIFICATIONS OF TYPE

Adam J. Koon

Oh You Pretty Things

Engadget Wix

On the other hand, sans serif typefaces

are perfect for web or on-screen usage
and print media like brochures.

If you want your designs to look clean,

minimalistic and approachable, sans
serifs are the way to go.

Typography For Complete Beginners

 CLASSIFICATIONS OF TYPE 21

Serif typefaces are further 1 Old-Style Serifs

broken down into: 2 Transitional Serifs

3 Modern Serifs

slanted serifs in some slanted

4 Slab Serifs
lowercase letters axis

Handgloves Garamond
bracketed
serifs

vertical

Handgloves
axis

Baskerville
bracketed small modulation
serifs (weight variation)

vertical

Handgloves
axis

Didot
unbracketed strong modulation
serifs
ball
terminal
vertical

Handgloves
axis

Clarendon
block-like
serifs

Typography For Complete Beginners

 22 CLASSIFICATIONS OF TYPE

San serif typefaces are 1 Grotesque/Gothic

further broken down into: 2 Neo-Grotesque

3 Humanist
4 Geometric
cap height and ascender
usually have the same height

Handgloves smaller
x-height
Brandon
Grotesque
two-story two-story
“a” “g”

Handgloves
larger x-height

Roboto

single-story
“g”

Handgloves Gill Sans

calligraphic feel more open

(as if done by hand) aperture

Handgloves
circular
“o”

Futura

almost no sharp
modulation vertex

Typography For Complete Beginners

 CLASSIFICATIONS OF TYPE 23

Other kinds of 1 Script font

fonts today include: 2 Monospaced font

3 Decorative font
4 Blackletter

Handgloves Radiant

Digital or handwritten calligraphy.

Handgloves
Fixed character width.
Courier

Handgloves Hooverville

Extreme features, others for a very specific situation.

Handgloves
Used during the 1500s in books and bibles.
Blackletter

Typography For Complete Beginners