Size & Type

1. Current U.S. Digital Standards

Throughout this lesson, you will learn how to use current digital standards in the U.S. that are primarily meant for printed documents.

This is important to keep in mind because web design, sign making, and other industries and countries use different measuring systems.

2. Point, Picas, and Inches

Type is measured by points and picas, which can be converted into inches. The following images is an example of what that looks like.

This image is not to scale, but it's large enough that you can see the difference in measurements.

A pica is the unit used when measuring the length of a line of type, and there are six picas in an inch. The standard page size for a U.S. letter is 8 ½ inches x 11 inches. This same measurement can be communicated in picas as 51p x 66p. A point is the unit used when measuring letterforms, and one-point measures 1/72 of an inch.

terms to know

Point

The unit used when measuring letterforms; a point measures 1/72 of an inch. Type is measured vertically from the bottom of the descender to the top of the ascender.

Pica

The unit used when measuring the length of a line of type; there are six picas in an inch.

3. Ascender and Descender

Type is measured vertically from the bottom of the descender to the top of the ascender.

Ascender is the name for the part of the typographic character that extends above the mean line.

Looking at the image above, the red line is called a baseline, which is the implied horizontal line upon which the character sits.

The black line you see is called the mean line, which, in a lowercase letter, is an implied horizontal line that falls across the top of the letter “X.” The areas above would be the ascenders. Were you to draw a dotted line, that would be your ascender line to which the ascender extends.

The descender does the opposite of the ascender. Descender is the name for the part of the character that extends below the baseline.

terms to know

Descender

The name for the part of a character that extends below the baseline.

Ascender

The name for the part of a character that extends above the mean line.

Baseline

The implied horizontal line upon which characters sit.

Mean Line

In a lowercase letter, an implied horizontal line which falls across the top of the letter “X.”

4. X-Height

Earlier in the lesson, you learned that the mean line is the implied horizontal line, which falls across the top of the letter “X.” This leads us to x-height, which is the vertical distance from the baseline to the mean line in a lowercase letter.

In the example below, you can see there are three different font types, but they're all the same point size.

There's a noticeable difference across some of these typefaces, and the x-height can be a significant distinguishing factor between them.

watch

term to know

X-Height

In a lowercase letter, the vertical distance from the baseline to the mean line.