Commonly used typography terms defined and explained.Kerning and tracking? Em dash versus en dash? Wish you knew what your designer was talking about when she speaks in typographical terms?

Don’t fret. To help you better understand this secret language, your favorite NJ design team has assembled some of the most commonly used terms in typography in this post.

Kerning vs. Tracking

Kerning refers to the adjustment of spacing between specific pairs of characters. While typefaces come with default (automatic) kerning, designers will implement manual kerning in certain cases when seeking a particular look. This often occurs when text is enlarged and discrepancies in spacing are more apparent.

Tracking refers to the adjustment of spacing throughout an entire word and is applied to a sentence or paragraph to achieve a desired look or format. A word’s tracking can be increased or decreased for stylistic purposes, or when a designer is looking to fill space or fit text into a small space.

Typeface and Font

A font is a collection of characters (letters, numerals, punctuation, and symbols) for a specific typeface. There are multiple fonts within a typeface, distinguished by their weight (light, book, heavy, etc.), italics, and other characteristics. For example, Times New Roman Regular is a different font than Times New Roman Bold.

Typeface refers to an entire family of fonts. In the above example, Times New Roman is the typeface. Typefaces are composed of characters that share similar shapes and marks. There are two main classifications for typefaces: serif and sans serif.

Serif vs. Sans Serif

Serifs are decorative markings that contribute to the structure of the letter, number, or symbol. They appear on the end of the character’s strokes. Times New Roman is an example. So, serif fonts are those whose characters have serifs.

Sans serif fonts simply do not have serifs. An example is Calibri.

Widows and Orphans

A widow is a single word or short series of words that falls at the end of a paragraph, page, or column, causing an excess of white space. An orphan is similar to a widow except it appears at the top of a paragraph, page, or column. This is fixed by adjusting the line length.

While this might seem frivolous, it becomes extremely important when looking to maximizing the use of space and lines in a given document. Avoiding widows and orphans also make layouts much more visually appealing.

Em dash vs. En dash vs. Hyphen

An em dash (—) is used for a break in thought.

An en dash (–) is used in between numbers to indicate a range of values.

A hyphen (-) connects two words to become one, forming one concept. It is the shortest of the dashes.

Copy, Content, and Text

Copy is a term used in journalism to refer to the words in a written piece. Copy is generally used by those in journalism, marketing, advertising, and other related fields because the term is used when referring to the state of a piece or how it was written. For example, “have you written the copy?”, “copyediting is due tomorrow”, “the copy is well-written”.

Text is somewhat interchangeable with copy in that it also refers to the words in a document, but it is used more generally; it’s not strictly used in journalistic scenarios. You may say, “the text on the newspaper is legible”, or “the poster is too text heavy”.

Content is the broadest term, as it refers to all components that make up any given piece. Content consists of copy, images, audio, and any other type of multimedia. That’s why you find “content offers” online, not “text offers”, and why website content is discussed, not just website copy.

Legibility vs. Readability

Legibility is how easy or difficult it is for a reader to distinguish one letter of a typeface from another. The typeface’s designer is responsible for good legibility.

Readability is how easy or difficult it is for a reader to navigate the text of a document or any given piece. This is the responsibility of the designer. Legibility may have influence on the overall readability of a piece, but they are not dependent on one another.

Upper Case vs. Lower Case

Just kidding! We hope you know this one :). But here’s a fun fact: these terms are derived from the fact that capital letters were kept in the upper compartments and small letters from the lower compartments of a type case in the days when metal type was composed by hand. Historically, uppercase letters were known as majuscules and lowercase as minuscules.

If you do ever have questions on typography, design, or other terminology, ask us! We’ll be happy to “geek out” in a terminology session with you

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