Typography 101: Guidelines of Letterforms

It’s critical to become fluent in the terminology of typography. An awareness of the structural aspects of type is the key to success, it can also provide useful insights for making informed design decisions. Remembering the terminology for describing letters in typography isn’t difficult because most of them are named after the human anatomy. It only becomes difficult because theirs a lot to remember. It is important to first understand how guidelines are used with letterforms, then to learn about all the parts that make up letterforms. These are the basic principles to learn typography.

The x-height consists of an invisible grid of parallel horizontal lines that shows how tall to make a lowercase letter of a typeface. The five horizontal lines from top to bottom represent different guidelines. The ascender line marks the appropriate height for the tall lowercase letters of a typeface like the letters b, d, h,and f. The cap height is the height of the capital letters. The mean line or waist line is the line that marks the tops of lowercase letters without ascenders, which can be referred to as a high waist line or a low waist line; the baseline is a line where all the words rest, making them appear evenly. Finally, at the very bottom, the descender or beard line marks the correct length for the lowercase g, j, p, y and q, it’s the level to which the lowest descenders descend.