Sunday, 17 April 2011

Notes From 'Grids & Layout' With Lorenzo

Chunk of Metal - Body
X-height - Lower case defined by the height of the 'x'
Leading - Adding lead to create more space between lines
Line Feed - Baseline to baseline.  With example it would be 14pt line feed.
Picas - Constant measurement which is always 12pt.
Pica Em & En - Variables between the size of the 'M' and 'N'.
Ligatures - Exists to interact 2 letters together.
Kerning - Spacing between a pair of letters.
Tracking - Spacing between all letters.
Reverse Out - Darker colour with a lighter type (may lead to unwanted bleed)
Folio - Page number.


  • An 'O' is traditionally slightly bigger to look optically correct.
  • Roman and Italic most common type styles.
  • Point size = Ascender to Descender (If leading is used add that to the point size). Displayed as '10/14pt' for eg.
  • Leading is a literal term.
  • X-height varies with different fonts.
  • More shape = More recognisability.  Therefore why CAPS are harder to read.
  • No leading = Solid.
  • Halftones can give hierarchy.

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