Chapter 2 Reflection by Halle Burke

Chapter 2: The Anatomy of Typography

            In Chapter two of Typographic Design: Form and Communication, the authors focus on the anatomy of typography, or how each letter in each font and typeface is created and the similarities between each typeface. In this chapter I learned a lot about how typography works and all of the details and precision that goes into creating font. For example, there are many different terms involved in typography that help describe how each letter in each font looks. Some of these terms include apex, hairline, fillet, and crossbar. (1) The apex is the peak of an uppercase A, the hairline is the thinnest stroke within a typeface, the fillet is the curved edge that connects stem to serif, and crossbar is the horizontal stroke that connect two sides of a letter. Each part of a letter has its own specific term to create unity within letters. I also learned that there are many similarities between letters within a font. Many terms within letters can be similar to each other in the same font. For example, the curves in capital letters share the same round stroke (2), and the letters b, d, p, and q in lowercase and uppercase form share similar curves and straight edge parts. One concept that I found very interesting is the stark visible difference between the varying spaces between each letter of a word. (3) The bigger the space between the letters the wider and more spacious the word looks. I originally would have thought that the difference would be very subtle and almost unnoticeable, but in fact the varying spaces create an optical illusion that three different versions of kerning could look like three completely different words. The kerning and tracking of words and letters can create different meanings for the same word.

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