Typeface in the context of Type designer

In linguistics, a grapheme is the smallest functional unit of a writing system. The word grapheme is derived from Ancient Greek's gráphō ('write'), and the suffix -eme (by analogy with phoneme and other emic units). The study of graphemes is called graphemics. The concept of a grapheme is abstract; it is similar to the notion of a character in computing. (A specific geometric shape that represents any particular grapheme in a given typeface is called a glyph.) In orthographic and linguistic notation, a particular glyph (character) is represented as a grapheme (is used in its graphemic sense) by enclosing it within angle brackets: e.g. ⟨a⟩.

Typography is the art and technique of arranging type to make written language legible, readable and appealing when displayed. The arrangement of type involves selecting typefaces, point sizes, line lengths, line spacing, letter spacing, and spaces between pairs of letters. The term typography is also applied to the style, arrangement, and appearance of the letters, numbers, and symbols created by the process. Type design is a closely related craft, sometimes considered part of typography; most typographers do not design typefaces, and some type designers do not consider themselves typographers. Typography also may be used as an ornamental and decorative device, unrelated to the communication of information.

Typography is also the work of graphic designers, art directors, manga artists, comic book artists, and, now, anyone who arranges words, letters, numbers, and symbols for publication, display, or distribution, from clerical workers and newsletter writers to anyone self-publishing materials. Until the Digital Age, typography was a specialized occupation. Personal computers opened up typography to new generations of previously unrelated designers and lay users. As the capability to create typography has become ubiquitous, the application of principles and best practices developed over generations of skilled workers and professionals has diminished.

The cent is a monetary unit of many national currencies that equals a hundredth (1⁄100) of the basic monetary unit. The word derives from the Latin centum, 'hundred'.

The cent sign is commonly a simple minuscule (lower case) letter c. In North America, the c is crossed by a diagonal or vertical stroke (depending on typeface), yielding the character ¢.

The dollar sign, also known as the peso sign, is a currency symbol consisting of a capital ⟨S⟩ crossed with one or two vertical strokes ($ or depending on typeface), used to indicate the unit of various currencies around the world, including most currencies denominated "dollar" or "peso". The explicitly double-barred sign is called cifrão in the Portuguese language.

The sign is also used in several compound currency symbols, such as the Brazilian real (R$) and the United States dollar (US$): in local use, the nationality prefix is usually omitted. In countries that have other currency symbols, the US dollar is often assumed and the "US" prefix omitted.

A glyph (/ɡlɪf/ GLIF) is any kind of purposeful mark. In typography, a glyph is "the specific shape, design, or representation of a character". It is a particular graphical representation, in a particular typeface, of an element of written language. A grapheme, or part of a grapheme (such as a diacritic), or sometimes several graphemes in combination (a composed glyph) can be represented by a glyph.

Handwriting is the personal and unique style of writing with a writing instrument, such as a pen or pencil in the hand. Handwriting includes both block and cursive styles and is separate from generic and formal handwriting script/style, calligraphy or typeface. Because each person's handwriting is unique and different, it can be used to verify a document's writer. The deterioration of a person's handwriting is also a symptom or result of several different diseases. The inability to produce clear and coherent handwriting is also known as dysgraphia.

The incipit (/ˈɪnsɪpɪt/ IN-sip-it) of a text is the first few words of the text, employed as an identifying label. In a musical composition, an incipit is an initial sequence of notes, having the same purpose. The word incipit comes from Latin and means "it begins". Its counterpart taken from the ending of the text is the explicit (Latin: explicitum est, lit. 'it has been unfolded'). The unfolding refers to a papyrus scroll. The end is also referred to as desinit, 'it is finished'.

Before the development of titles, texts were often referred to by their incipits, as with for example Agnus Dei. During the medieval period in Europe, incipits were often written in a different script or colour from the rest of the work of which they were a part, and "incipit pages" might be heavily decorated with illumination. Though the word incipit is Latin, the practice of the incipit predates classical antiquity by several millennia and can be found in various parts of the world. Although not always called by the name of incipit today, the practice of referring to texts by their initial words remains commonplace.

Lettering or handlettering is a term for artfully drawing letters, instead of writing them simply. Each letter is created with attention to detail and has a unique role within a composition. Lettering is created as an image, with letters that are meant to be used in a unique configuration. Lettering words do not always translate into alphabets that can later be used in a typeface, since they are created with a specific word in mind.

Trajan is a serif typeface designed in 1989 by Carol Twombly for Adobe.

The design is based on the letterforms of capitalis monumentalis or Roman square capitals, as used for the inscription at the base of Trajan's Column, hence the name. Trajan is an all-capitals typeface, as the Romans did not use lowercase letters on monumental inscriptions. Twombly created the design taking inspiration from a full-size picture of a rubbing of the inscription. It is well known for appearing on many film posters.

Typesetting is the composition of text for publication, display, or distribution by means of arranging physical type (or sort) in mechanical systems or glyphs in digital systems representing characters (letters and other symbols). Stored types are retrieved and ordered according to a language's orthography for visual display. Typesetting requires one or more fonts (which are widely but erroneously confused with and substituted for typefaces).

One significant effect of typesetting was that authorship of works could be spotted more easily, making it difficult for copiers who have not gained permission.

In typography, the point is the smallest unit of measure. It is used for measuring font size, leading, and other items on a printed page. The size of the point has varied throughout printing's history. Since the 18th century, the size of a point has been between 0.18 and 0.4 millimeters. Following the advent of desktop publishing in the 1980s and 1990s, digital printing has largely supplanted the letterpress printing and has established the desktop publishing (DTP) point as the de facto standard. The DTP point is defined as 1⁄72 of an inch (or exactly 0.3527 mm) and, as with earlier American point sizes, is considered to be 1⁄12 of a pica.

In metal type, the point size of a font describes the height of the metal body on which that font's characters were cast. In digital type, letters of a computer font are designed around an imaginary space called an em square. When a point size of a font is specified, the font is scaled so that its em square has a side length of that particular length in points. Although the letters of a font usually fit within the font's em square, there is not necessarily any size relationship between the two, so the point size does not necessarily correspond to any measurement of the size of the letters on the printed page.

Type design is the art and process of designing typefaces. This involves drawing each letterform using a consistent style. The basic concepts and design variables are described below.

A typeface differs from other modes of graphic production such as handwriting and drawing in that it is a fixed set of alphanumeric characters with specific characteristics to be used repetitively. Historically, these were physical elements, called sorts, placed in a wooden frame; modern typefaces are stored and used electronically. It is the art of a type designer to develop a pleasing and functional typeface. In contrast, it is the task of the typographer (or typesetter) to lay out a page using a typeface that is appropriate to the work to be printed or displayed.

In Latin script typography, roman is one of the three main kinds of historical type, alongside blackletter and italic. Sometimes called normal or regular, it is distinct from these two for its upright style (relative to the calligraphy-inspired italic) and its simplicity (relative to blackletter).

During the early Renaissance, roman (in the form of Antiqua) and italic type were used separately. Today, roman and italic type are mixed, and most typefaces are composed of both an upright roman style and an associated italic or oblique style.

In metal typesetting, a font is a particular size, weight and style of a typeface, defined as the set of fonts that share an overall design.For instance, the typeface Bauer Bodoni (shown in the figure) includes fonts "Roman" (or "regular"), "bold" and "italic"; each of these exists in a variety of sizes. In traditional printing, fonts were physically created using metal or wood type, with a font for each size.

In the digital description of fonts (computer fonts), the terms font and typeface are often used interchangeably. For example, when used in computers, each style is stored in a separate digital font file. Most are scalable fonts, so all sizes of a style are encompassed in one font.

Blackboard bold is a style of writing bold symbols on a blackboard by doubling certain strokes, commonly used in mathematical lectures, and the derived style of typeface used in printed mathematical texts. The style is most commonly used to represent the number sets ${\displaystyle \mathbb {N} }$ (natural numbers), ${\displaystyle \mathbb {Z} }$ (integers), ${\displaystyle \mathbb {Q} }$ (rational numbers), ${\displaystyle \mathbb {R} }$ (real numbers), and ${\displaystyle \mathbb {C} }$ (complex numbers).

To imitate a bold typeface on a typewriter, a character can be typed over itself (called double-striking); symbols thus produced are called double-struck, and this name is sometimes adopted for blackboard bold symbols, for instance in Unicode grapheme names.

Otto "Otl" Aicher (German: [ˈɔtl̩ ˈʔaɪçɐ]; 13 May 1922 – 1 September 1991) was a German graphic designer and typographer. Aicher co-founded and taught at the influential Ulm School of Design. He is known for having led the design team of the 1972 Summer Olympics in Munich, and for overseeing the creation of its prominently used system of pictograms. Aicher also developed the Rotis typeface.

A bar or stroke is a modification consisting of a line drawn through a grapheme. It may be used as a diacritic to derive new letters from old ones, or simply as an addition to make a grapheme more distinct from others. It can take the form of a vertical bar, slash, or crossbar.

A stroke is sometimes drawn through the numerals 7 (horizontal overbar) and 0 (overstruck foreslash), to make them more distinguishable from the number 1 and the letter O, respectively. (In some typefaces, one or other or both of these characters are designed in these styles; they are not produced by overstrike or by combining diacritic. The normal way in most of Europe to write the number seven is with a bar. )

A logo (abbreviation of logotype; from Ancient Greek λόγος (lógos) 'word, speech' and τύπος (túpos) 'mark, imprint') is a graphic mark, emblem, or symbol used to aid and promote public identification and recognition. It may be of an abstract or figurative design or include the text of the name that it represents, as in a wordmark.

In the days of hot metal typesetting, a logotype was one word cast as a single piece of type (e.g. "The" in ATF Garamond), as opposed to a ligature, which is two or more letters joined, but not forming a word. By extension, the term was also used for a uniquely set and arranged typeface or colophon. At the level of mass communication and in common usage, a company's logo is today often synonymous with its trademark or brand.