Chapter 2 Summarry

Chapter 2 discusses in depth the anatomy of type faces. The chapter begins by explaining the parts of letterforms and their construction. The main parts of letterform construction are the baseline, beard line, capline, meanline, and x-height. These terms are guidelines to align characters and to keep consistency. Arm, bowl, spine, stroke, etc. were all defined and illustrated on a diagram.

Next the chapter discussed the proportion of letterforms. It began by defining the stroke to height ratio, which is the ratio of the stroke width to the capital height. The next proportion was contrast in stroke weight, which is the variation of the stroke width in a letterform. Expanded and condensed styles change the width of the letterforms creating different proportions. The final defining proportion was the proportion between the x-height and capital, ascender, and descender.

Further in the chapter the different styles of type were mentioned. In chronological order they are Old Style, Italic, Transitional, Modern, Egyptian, and San Serif. With each style type slowly moved away from imitating handwriting and became more geometric.

This chapter also covers the origins of the measurement system for type using diagrams that show the old method of measuring type. The standard units for measuring type are picas and points. A point is about 1/72 of an inch and a pica is about 1/6 of an inch.

The last pages of the chapter explain type families. Type families contain all the variations of a typeface, such as oblique and bold. The Univers Family uses a number system to define those variations instead of the actual terms. The first number indicates stroke weight and the second indicates the spacing between letters.