Calligraphy Terms

There are many terms used in the world of calligraphy, and here are some terms and definitions involving letters and calligraphy writing, shown below.

Italic Style

What Is The Difference Between Serif And San-Serif Letters

Serif fonts have added details at the end of some strokes.  San-Serif does not have the added details and look cleaner and less cluttered.  Many publishers who publish traditional printed material use the San-Serif style letterforms.

This font style, which is Arial, is described as a San-Serif Font because it is simple and clean with no fancy strokes.

This style Font, is more ornate and has added strokes at the beginning and end, especially with the upper case letters, so it is a Serif type Font.

What Is Uncial Letters

The term uncials are another word for Majuscule, which is also known as capital letters.   Scripts that are written in Lowercase letters are known as minuscule letters.

The word cursive is to describe a kind of typeface or style of fonts.

What Is The Difference Between Majuscule And Minuscule Letters

Majuscule is another name for capital letters and miniscule is for lowercase letters.

What Are Ascending And Descending Letterforms

Ascending are protrusions above the x height of a letter and descending forms are tails of the x height of a letter.

The x height of a letter is the height of the letters without the ascending and descending forms.  Capital letters should not be higher than the ascending height.

As a rule of thumb, the ascending height should be about 7 pen-nib widths in height.  The x height should be about 4 pen-nib widths high and the descender part of a letter should be about 2 pen-nibs long.

What is the Base Line

The Base line is the line that letters sit on.  Inter spaces are spaces between letters.

What Does Cursive Letters Mean

Cursive means joined up handwriting or linked writing.  This style of writing is popular because it is quicker than writing in block letters, which is not joined up.  It can look very elegant.

What Are Fonts

The word Font means to describe a type of letter style used.  For example: 

This is an Arial font and is commonly used. 

This style, which is Times New Roman is another widely used font style.

What are Italic letters

Italic letters tend to be narrow and angular.  Sometimes they lean to the right.  This font is Italic style.

What Does Typeface Mean

Typeface is a word to describe a type of printed character.