Chapter 2: Anatomy of Typography
This chapter focuses on the anatomy of typography. The chapter touches on various elements
of typography including the structural elements and parts of letterforms. There were terms in the books
vocabulary that were not in our list from class. These new terms helped me understand more about every
individual aspect of a letterform.
For instance, the apex is the peak of the triangle in an uppercase
“A.” This term among others gave
me a deeper understanding of the amount of detail put into typography.
One thing that stood out the most to me in this chapter was
the section on unity of design in the type of font. I have been handwriting and using computers since I was in
elementary school, so I have become accustomed to type and font without really
thinking about every aspect of type.
The unity of type is one of the aspects that I never paid attention to,
but I definitely notice it every time I write. The book talks about the tremendous diversity of form in
typographic font. There are
endless possibilities within type because there are twenty-six capital
letterforms, twenty-six lowercase letterforms, ten numerals, punctuation, and
other graphic elements. As stated
on page 36, “ All well-designed fonts of type display [a] principle of
repetition with the variety that is found in Times Roman Bold.” Times New Roman has a repetition of
curves, verticals, horizontals, and serifs that are combined to bring variety
and unity to typography designs using this typeface.
The optical relationships within font is another aspect of
type that was new to me, but very important. Certain pointed and curved letters have little weight at the
top, so they appear shorter than the rest of the letters. In order to make the letters look the
same height, certain parts of letters extend above the capline or below the
baseline. What I learned most from
this chapter is the importance of the relationships within fonts.
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