Lessons
Lesson Info
Anatomy of Type
Let's talk about the anatomy of typography because we just talked about a lot of it. But you might not know what it's like in practice. So I'm going to go ahead and come back out here, type out the word typography, and let's change this to times blow it up. There we go and we'll zoom in. Okay, so here's the word typography just written out in times, Roman. And what we're gonna do is identify some of the anatomy pieces of the type here. So first things first. What I'm going to do is draw some lines out here so I'll lock this object down for a second because I don't want to accidentally manipulate it. Grab this line segment tool here and I use the smart guy. It's the line things up, and I'll just draw the line here towards the bottom that everything sits on and that is going to be my baseline. Then I'll go here, and I'm gonna zoom in a little bit so I can see exactly where this is because it's hard to hit some of these. And you know what? Actually, an easier way to do this would be for m...
e toe convert that outlines first go. There we go. Now I can use a smart guide, and so we just draw this right across whips, redraw issue there ever again. And as you can see, that line goes all the way across and it hits a majority of those right at the top. Some of them not all the way. But most of them are hitting right there on top of it. And this is going to be the X height of our typography right there. I might even move that down. Never go, because some of these are going to extend past it. But for the most part, where we're looking for is the top of that. Why the top of the service to hit right there on that point? Then we've got our cap height. So move this up, create a duplicate, and the cap height is the basic point right up there at the top of the tea. All right, now let's identify some of the pieces that are inside of this word. Typography gonna reduce the opacity on these lines. Make a little bit easier for us to see what's going on and then lock him down. There we go. OK, so on the T, let's start off there on the tea. The tea itself has several different pieces to it. So I'm gonna start off just by selecting this. And the first thing I want to talk about is the stroke. So the stroke on this T is going to be the man part of the letter form before it gets to the Serifis or before it gets to the cross bar at the top. So that is the stroke of this particular piece, the Sarah, which is these little feet that come off the top in the bottom. So you've got one on the left, one on the right and two at the bottom. And I'll just show you exactly what that's all about by doing this right here, take this. And so just cut a little hole right there in the middle. And right there is your serif. So that's basically what the Saref is comprised of. It doesn't go too far into the stroke itself. It's just that little foot that hangs off the edge and the same holds true all way around. Now here we have the letter. Why? Um, letter why we've got the D sender down here at the bottom. That's what this little pieces and then towards the bottom as well. We've got this little piece in that little piece right there is our terminal. The reason I can't see. There we go. All right, there we go. There's our terminal. Remember? That's the serif that flares off the end of something that indicates the termination of a stroke. So here we would be drawing the stem of the Y. There it is. Got service at the top. And then here the letter P has got another descend. Er, it's also got a bowl. The bowl is this large piece that extends out around the edges and creates a counter. The same would hold true for the letter O letter O has a counter right there in the middle, as does the letter G at the top in the bottom. And it's also got a D sender that is actually part of the bowl for that. Let her are. Has a terminal and service. Let her A also has a counter in a bowl. Same for the letter P letter. What? Excuse me. Letter H, that's an A sender right there because it does go above the X height here. And so that would be our A centre right there. A race a little too much there. Just do this right There we go. So there's are a center right there at the top. And then, of course, the letter y at the end. Same thing we have before. So there are lots of pieces to typography, and it helps to come in and dissect all of these things so that you can understand them a little bit better. So going to illustrator or any application of your choice, type out the word typography. It's a great term to type out, oddly enough, because it does have all of these different things in it and then take the time to sort of pick it apart, understand the different pieces, and then go back to the terms that I just showed you in my keynote presentation and then start to learn the definitions. When I was first starting out, I actually made myself flashcards, so I would take like a letter and I would have that highlighted piece like I created there, highlighted on the front and then on the back. I would have the definition of whatever it is I was highlighting, and that's how I got through. Ah, lot of the classes that I took in college because we had to identify things like that. So it's very important. If you're starting out, especially if you're going to college to figure out all these different things, it will help you on your classes. It'll help you laying out type, help you on those tests to.
Ratings and Reviews
user-42725d
I found it an excellent and complete introduction to a difficult subject! I amply recommend it. Laura
a Creativelive Student
Constance Stickler
Student Work
Related Classes
Design Projects