I thought I'd continue my explanations of typography terms today! These are a few that describe the letters themselves and the random names for things that you probably don't even think about! You'll win if a typography or design round comes up on a quiz night though!! 

X-height

The x-height is the point where most of the lower case letters in a word reach their maximum height. It is set from the height of the x in that font and therefore different fonts will have different x-heights. This doesn’t take into account the taller letters or the letters with tails.

Ascender

An ascender is the upward stroke of a lowercase letter, like ‘b’ or ‘d’, where it goes higher than the x-height (see my previous post about x-height!). The point it reaches is called the ascent. 

Interestingly, the letter ‘t’ doesn’t go right up to the ascent, it stops between the x-height and the ascent. I’m not sure why, I think it goes back to old handwritten letterforms and calligraphy, I’d love to know the reason if anyone knows! 

Descender

A descender is the opposite of an ascender! It’s the ‘tail’ of letters such as p, g, & y which reach below the line you write on, or below the main part of the smaller letter such as a, c, s etc . The line that these letters sit on is called the baseline, and the line that the descenders reach is called the descent.

Baseline 

The baseline is a nice easy one, it’s the invisible line which most letters sit on and which the descenders hang below.

I hope this has been helpful!