Parts of the Letter

Though typography is typically a digital medium it has its roots in handwritten letters.  Just as different people make letters differently, the different uses of the parts of letters in typography distinguish fonts from each other.  I like to play around with which fonts I use in printed projects such as posters, flyers, and invitations, but I did not realize that each type of stroke had a specific name, and that these names are sometimes part of the font name and can help you distinguish between fonts, as is the case of a serif, which is a short stroke finishing off the main strokes of the letter, such as the horizontal stroke below the diagonal strokes of a capital A in certain fonts.  There are also stroke types that are typical of handwriting—the apex and vertex, where are high and low points of a letter, and the ascenders and descenders which are principal parts of letters like b and p.

 Besides the styles of the strokes and presence or absence of certain strokes, a major factor in typography is counterform—the negative space within letters—which is especially useful in logos.

                I guess the lesson learned here is that knowing these terms and how the parts of the letter create their expressive effect can help you be more effective in your choice of lettering in any number of projects.