Typography and Lettering
What this domain tests
Letter construction, spacing discipline, type classification and hand lettering on a guideline grid.
Anatomy you must name
Baseline, x-height, cap height, ascender, descender, stem, bowl, counter, terminal, ear, crossbar, serif. A typeface is the design; a font is the file, weight and size instance.
Core rules
- Guidelines: cap line, x-line, baseline, descender line, plus a slant line for italic. Keep them faint and letter heights consistent.
- Optical spacing beats mechanical spacing: round letters such as O and C overshoot the line slightly, and diagonals such as A and V need tighter sidebearings than verticals.
- Kerning is space between a specific pair; tracking is uniform space across a run; leading is line spacing.
- Hierarchy comes from size, weight, case, colour and position. Two families plus one accent is enough.
- Legibility is the design of the letterform; readability is how a set block of text performs.
- Classes: old-style, transitional, modern, slab serif, sans (grotesque, humanist, geometric), script, display.
Odia script note
Odia letters are built on rounded strokes without a continuous horizontal headstroke, a form suited to incising on palm leaf. When lettering Odia, keep bowl radii even and align the tops to the cap line.
Worked example
Letter AURORA in capitals. Draw cap line and baseline, divide into five equal widths, then adjust: the diagonals of A are slightly narrower, O needs overshoot top and bottom. Space so that the counters look equal rather than the gaps, then check by squinting and by viewing upside down.
Traps
- Equal measured gaps that still look uneven.
- Setting long text in a display face.
- Adding a third and fourth typeface for interest.
- Descenders colliding with the next line because leading was too tight.