Typography Terms Poster: The A-Z of Typographic Terms Infographic Designed by Fontsmith for Free Download



Typography Terms Poster A-Z of Typographic Terms by Fontsmith Free Download.jpg

Typography Terms Poster: The A-Z of Typographic Terms Infographic Designed by Fontsmith for Free Download

The Typography Terms Poster: The A-Z of Typographic Terms Infographic, designed by Fontsmith, is a super valuable typographical resource you ought to get your hands on, more so as it’s a Free Download.

Incidentally, this will go nicely with the free-to-download Typography Primer Book I’ve previously posted about:

Learning about Typography: Typography Primer is an absolutely terrific typography and font book, covering a healthy portion of typography, as well as a decent size Glossary of Typographic Terms, provided by Adobe.

The A-Z of Typographic Terms by FontSmith

It’s well worth visiting FontSmith’s blog post on the Typography Terms, as they have some nice enlargements and additional info to share.

FontSmith: “As type designers we can get immersed in an insular typographical bubble at times. It’s easy to forget that our language, the lingo, words and terms that we use to discuss, critique and refine our designs is under the constant pressure of discourse and scrutiny within, often redefining itself.

We thought that it would be an interesting project to research and illustrate a few of the key words that we use everyday here in the Fontsmith studio but then before we knew it we were up to nearly 80 terms! Unable to cut the list down we’ve prepared this infographic that lists all the vocabulary in one place.

Our new typeface FS Aldrin is used on titles and description info. Its technical and precise shapes seemed perfect for conveying all of the terms in a succinct but also amiable tone of voice…”

A-Z of Typographic Terms

Creative Commons Licence for Typography Terms Poster

This FontSmith Typography Terms Poster is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International Licence. This means you you are free to copy, distribute and adapt the work providing is it attributed to www.fontsmith.com

The default version of the Typography Terms Poster is as above, a PDF on white background, then I found a lovely free vintage poster mock-up from Mockups Design, and had some fun framing it.

Some enlarged segments from the blog post below:

Bilateral serif: Serif extending to both sides of a main stroke.
Bowl: Fully enclosed rounded part of a letter.
Bracket: Curved or wedge-like connection between the steam and serif of some fonts
Cap height: Height of a capital letter measured from the baseline
Condensed: Type style designed with narrow width proportions
Counter: An area partially or entirely enclosed in a letterform or symbol, like an ‘o’, ‘p’, or ‘c’.

Typography Terms Poster: The A-Z of Typographic Terms Infographic Designed by Fontsmith for Free Download

Finial: Tapered or curved end on letters like the bottom of a ‘c’ or ‘e’ or the top of a double storey ‘a’.
Flag: Horizontal stroke on the figure ‘5’.
Foot: The part of a stem that rests on the baseline
Gadzook: An embellishment in a ligature that is not originally part of either letter.
Glyph: A single character (number, letter, mark or symbol) is represented by a glyph.
Grotesk: German name for sans serif

About Fontsmith

Fontsmith is a leading boutique type foundry with a complete font design and production service. Founded in 1997 by Jason Smith and known for creating fonts with a distinctively human character, Fontsmith is a truly international team of designers working from a studio in central London.

Typography Terms Poster: The A-Z of Typographic Terms Infographic Designed by FontSmith for Free Download

A-Z of Typographic Terms