The process of arranging type to make written material readable. The arrangement of type involves decisions about individual letters and words (e.g. line spacing, letter spacing, and word spacing) and more significant page layout decisions (e.g., margins, headline position on the page).
The last line of a paragraph following the rest, or a single line in a paragraph that is out of place with the rest.
The distance between the baseline and the mean line of lowercase letters in a typeface. Nearby descenders (such as j) and ascenders (such as q) usually extend slightly below or above this height.
Also called a line break, when you want to keep the text in one paragraph and not follow it with an airy space.
A well-known cognitive psychologist's principle that says that the time it takes to make a decision varies logarithmically according to the number of choices. As more options are presented, more decision time is required due to the mental work of comparing and contrasting each potential option.
A selector that can be applied to any HTML element. Classes should be used when designing for multiple instances. For example, if you want all <h1> tags in the website to look blue, then you could use the class="blue-text" attribute.
In handwriting and calligraphy, ball terminals are the end of a stroke that resembles a ball. They are also used in some typefaces like cursive or old-style typefaces.
Also known as the divine proportion, is a number, or a ratio, sometimes approximated by phi and widely considered aesthetically pleasing. The golden ratio has been featured in nature and art in many ways, including hexagonal honeycombs, the human body, and mathematics. More frequently, it is used in design and digital art to represent a path (or steps) one can take to achieve a particular look or result. In art, an artist may produce something (a painting or drawing, for example) using the golden ratio as a basis for its composition.
The small decorative stroke at the end of a stroke in a letter, or a typeface.
The part of a letter, usually a vertical line, that rise above the x-height.
The process of applying a thin layer of foil to paper coated with adhesive on one side.