Font Facts

Carl Shank • January 15, 2021

All About Type

1. SERIF – (in TYPE above) “feet” in French; a small finishing stroke to a letter form that crosses roughly perpendicular to the stroke. Serif type is preferred in text, or “body,” copy because it is more readable in longer sections of type. This is because the letter forms are more distinguishable, and the eye naturally follows the horizontal strokes of the letter forms.


2. SANS SERIF – (in STYLE above) “without feet” in French; a font without serifs. Helvetica is an example of a “sans serif” font. Sans serif type is more legible and often preferred in headlines or what is called “display” copy. It’s uniform strokes help the face to stand out.


3. POINT SIZE – the height of the type body, including the ascenders (cf. 8 ) and the descenders (cf. 6) and extending to a fixed depth below  the descenders. In modern desktop publishing, one point equals 1⁄72 inch.This sample is set in 90 point type.


4. X-HEIGHT – the height of lowercase letters without ascenders or descenders, like the “e” measured from the baseline (cf. 5 ) to the mean line (cf. 9), or top of such letters. X-height becomes important when choosing a typeface, or font, for a particular column width. Wider columns use type with greater x-height, while narrow columns generally require a  typeface with a smaller x-height.


5. BASELINE – an imaginary horizontal line on which the font letters forms rest. Note that for font design purposes, some letter forms, like the "o" fall slightly below the baseline.


6. DESCENDER – the portion of letters like “g,” “j,” “p,” “q,” and “y” that extends below the baseline. It is usually less than the height of an ascender.


7. ITALICS – type that slants to the right, used to set off quotes, book titles and special phrases. Some fonts have what are called “true” italics (like the “e” in TYPE), while others have “oblique” or merely slanted letters (like the “e” in STYLE). Sans serif (cf. 2) in STYLE) letter forms usually have “obliques” for italics.


8. ASCENDER – the portion of a lowercase letter that extends above the mean line (cf. 9).


9. MEAN LINE – the imaginary line at the top of lowercase letters without ascenders or descenders, like the “e” measured from the baseline (cf. 7 ). SEE x-height 4.


10. DINGBATS – small decorative marks, bullets, boxes, or symbols that make up a specialty font; once known as “printer’s flowers.” Here the dingbat is from the typeface known as Zapf Dingbats. Dingbats add “spice” to ads and even some kinds of text copy.

Successful Layout & Design

Font Restoration Mechanics

By Carl Shank • May 13, 2025
Font Restoration Mechanics. Let me begin by giving an example from the world of theology, my first love and profession. Many people, even many non-Christian people, know that we are saved “by faith.” But faith in what or who? Well, faith in God. But this is imprecise. It is faith in Jesus Christ the Bible tells us. But once again, this too can be mistaken as just an intellectual nod of the mind toward Jesus without a real life change or transformation. More detailed biblical discussion, with appropriate distinctions, must be made so that we don’t make “faith” a human, works-based activity we do to please God. Or some existential “experience” with no definable qualities. Digging even deeper, faith saves no one, though it is absolutely necessary for salvation. It is Jesus Christ who saves. Faith becomes an “instrument” of salvation. Theologians have been unpacking this salvation “by faith alone” for centuries. Books and “how-to” sermons have been written and preached and taught here. Do you see the tremendous amount of refinement that “faith” requires? Precise typography claims similar distinctions and refinements in letter development and typeface creation. CARE Typography has been able to restore older hand-drawn fonts from various sources to modern digital typefaces. One of those most prolific sources has been from Alphabets Old and New — For The Use of Craftsmen, With An Introductory Essay on ‘Art in the Alphabet’” by Lewis F. Day, London, 1910.There is a wealth of older fonts shown by Day, one of them being a Roman Forum font from an old Roman Forum engraving. It might be thought that to copy and paste the letters and import them into a font design program, like FontLab’s Fontographer, is simple and rather straight-forward. Not so. From a font designer’s work, the transfer from a screenshot of an old book to a clear and professional open type font (SEE my Blog on “Open Type Fonts” in “More About Fonts” March 9, 2021) takes care and lots of work. It is both tedious and time intensive. The details of such work are often overlooked. Here’s an inside look at such work.

Wide Is Beautiful

By Carl Shank • March 15, 2025
Wide Is Beautiful What makes a typeface beautiful? Aesthetically pleasing fonts or typefaces have differing qualities that make them suitable and beautiful in different contexts and uses. I have chosen six (6) wide or "extended" font faces to highlight the inherent beauty and usability of such type. The samples chosen range from well used Adobe fonts to a specialty antique wide font CARE Typography crafted from an old fashioned type book published by Frederick Nelson Phillips, Inc of New York back in 1945.
Show More