Adobe Type Questions

Can't believe I didn't upload this stuff sooner, as it has been sitting in my folder done! -_-;

Q1

Serif- A serif is a line or dog ear on the end of a character for extra detail. An example would be Times New Roman or Garamond.

Sans- aka Sans Serief (French for without Serif) fonts are also known as Gothic fonts. Eg. Arial, Calibri and Hellvetica

Q2

 x-height is the height of the lowercase letter x in a font. It determines the overall aesthetic of a Typeface, whether or not it is easy to read and how every character is spaced on a line

Q3

You can measure Typefaces in either height or width. Type height and width are measured in points and originated from the metal plate used in typewriters.

Q4

The most common variants in a Type Family are Bold, Italics and Bold Italics, although you will find many fonts with other variations from Superbolds to Ultrathins.

Q5

Monospacing in type originated from typewriters in which each glyph had to be the same spacing apart as they printed using metal plates. Most modern fonts and rich-text-editing programs use proportional spacing, which allows for an easier to read body of text.

Q6

The space between lines of text is called Leading and is measured from the baseline of one line of text to the cap height of another. Almost every Rich-text editor (and some DOS text editors) have the capability to adjust Leading although (thanks to Microsoft Word) is often referred to as line spacing.

On a side note.

Microsoft has a lot to answer for in the modern age of typography, as it makes editing so simple without the need for any knowledge of layout or terms of design. Though it has also lead to the epidemic of almost everything you see printed by the average person is in one of three fonts, Times New Roman, Arial and Calibri. Whilst these aren’t bad fonts they aren’t the only ones out there and with Microsoft Windows difficulties installing new fonts users are stuck with the pitiful selection Microsoft decides to give you.

~mini rant over