Typography Terms

There has to be more to Typography than just choosing a font, right? Yes, hypothetical student, yes there is. Here are some typography terms to try tailoring to your type today!

Alignment

This refers to where the word, sentence, or block of text is in relation to the margins of the document. There are four main alignment methods; Left, Right, Centered, and Full.

Left	Right
Centered	Full

Baseline

The baseline is an imaginary line on which the characters of a typeface rest.

 

X Height

The X Height is the distance between the baseline and the top of lowercase letters in a typeface.

 

Kerning and Tracking

Kerning is the distance between individual letters in a font. Think about capital "A" and capital "W". If they were next to each other in a word and no kerning was applied to the font, there would be a large space between these letters. Kerning allows us to pull these letters together so your text looks a bit more natural.

Kerning only refers to the spacing between individual characters. Tracking, however, refers to the spacing between all characters in a typeface.

 

Leading

Leading (pronounced LED-ing) is the distance between the baselines of the lines of text. It is essentially the line spacing.

 

Type Styles

There are four basic type styles: Normal, Bold, Italic, and Underline. You will use normal style for most text. Bold, italics, and underline all draw attention to specific words and phrases in your text. Use them sparingly.