Type anatomy and terminology

- [Voiceover] Let's begin by defining…the parts of a letter form.…So type sits on an imaginary line, known as the baseline.…The lowercase letters come up to…what's referred to as the median line.…And the height of lower case letters…is referred to as the x-height.…The portions within letters like the "o"…and the "g" and the "a", the negative space…within them, those are referred to as the counters.…Portions of the letter that go beneath the baseline…are referred to as descenders.…

And portions of lowercase letters that go above…the median line are referred to as ascenders.…It's interesting to note that the ascender height…is actually typically higher than…the cap height in most fonts.…The vertical part of the letter is referred to as the stem.…And the curved part is referred to as the bowl.…If I take a line on one of the curved letters…and run it from the thinnest point at the top…to the thinnest point at the bottom,…this indicates the stress, and the stress…simulates the angle that you would get…if you were to draw the character with a calligraphic pen.…