#Century gothic typeface meaning install#

X-height is exactly what is sounds like, the height of a lowercase “x” in a given typeface. Calligraphy styles have varied stroke weight, with some parts of the letters very thin and other parts much thicker. Some typefaces have uniform stroke weight, meaning each part of the letter is the same width. Stroke refers to the lines and curves of the characters. Here are a few of the most common and useful terms. Of course, there’s a bundle of jargon related to the anatomy of characters. In typography, a character is an individual letter, punctuation mark, or symbol. No one is kerning entire magazine articles. This time-consuming task is generally reserved for titles and headlines. Designers kern letters until the visual space is balanced. The angled sides can create big visual gaps between letters. It seems crazy, but in the end the design always looks so much better.

I’ve watched designers spend obscene amounts of time moving letters a pixel at a time to find the perfect balance. Kerning is custom horizontal letter spacing. Word’s default tracking should work for most written documents, but you can change it too “tight” or “loose” if needed. Even though every letter shape results in different visual space between letters, your program will automatically space letters a certain number of pixels apart.

Tracking is the uniform horizontal space between characters. So if you’re typing in 10-point the default leading is 12 points. Microsoft Word defaults to 120% of the font size. Graphic designers customize leading to the specific text. It’s the amount of breathing room between stacked lines of texts. This is more than single- or double-spacing a Word document. Think of those early printers using moveable type and how much lead or metal they added to space the lines. Leading simply means vertical line spacing. Typeface-the letters you see on the screen or page

#Century gothic typeface meaning install#

Chances are when you ask, “What font is that?” you’re wondering the name of the letter shapes not what file type is installed on a computer, so 99.9% of the time you say “font” you really mean “typeface.” Arial, Century Gothic, Calibri, and Wingdings are all typefaces, but you must install the font file to use them.įont-the file you install to access certain letter shapes A typeface is what you can see on a screen or a page. Think of the type of face on the lead block. Typeface has always meant the printed letter itself. The file you install on your computer to use Helvetica, typically a. Technically, Helvetica and Times New Roman are not fonts. A font is not the shape of the letters you see on the screen. In modern terms, a font is a computer file. The font was the literal mechanism of printing a letter or what you have to own to imprint letters. When early printers laid out a page of text, they used individual lead blocks, called “sorts,” for each letter, which they called “glyphs.” The blocks were held together by a frame, coated in ink, and imprinted on a page like a stamp.Ī font was the collection of blocks-capital letters, lowercase letters, punctuation marks, etc. To understand the difference between the terms, you have to remember some typing history. What is the difference between font and typeface? It’s the most common question in typography.

Typography is a major part of modern graphic design, but most font terminology comes from the 15th century! Use our quick guide of typeface terms as your cheat sheet to typography.