Parts of the Letter Reflection

       When I first looked at fonts I did not really realize that there were so many individual parts to them, let alone names for all of these parts.  Typography is evolved from handwriting and has been evolving for around 500 years.  Letters are all made up of strokes or stems, just like the strokes a pen makes when letters are written.  Some of the various parts of letters that were discussed in this document are serif, bracket, and stroke width.  These parts all have to do with the body of what makes up the letter.  Serifs are the short strokes that finishes off the major strokes.  Brackets are the curving joint between serifs and strokes.  Stroke width is the varying thickness of the stems and strokes that make up the letter.  There are several terms that relate the overall height of letter such as baseline, cap height, and x-height.  Baseline is the invisible line that all letters sit on, cap height is the height of capital letters from baseline to the top, and x-height is the height of all lowercase letters which is determined by the height of the lowercase x in a particular font.  Any letter such as a b or d that has a stroke that rises above the x-height is called an ascender.  Other words that describe specific points on letters are the apex, crossbar, vertex, final, and terminal.  The apex is the uppermost point on a capital A and the crossbar is the bar that crosses the middle of the A.  The vertex is the lowermost point in letters such as V and W.  An example of a final is the stroke that hangs over the rounded part of a lowercase a and the terminal is the tail that comes off of a lowercase a.  A bowl is a rounded part, whether open, like in c, or closed like in o, that describes the negative space, or counter, within.  An eye is like the little closed portion of the lowercase e, barbs are the hook like strokes on the end of capital C's, spurs are the small strokes on the bottoms of G's, and tails are the strokes that hang off of Q's.  Lowercase g's have several special features such as ears, the little nub that comes off the bowl and links that connect the bowl to the loop below.  K's also have special parts such as the upper diagonal stroke called an arm and the lower called a leg.  These two meet in an area called the crotch.