Design Principles, Font and Typeface

Letters operate over a spacial element, two lines they sit on.

• Cap height - Capital letter
• Baseline, where letters sit
• x Height, standard height of letters
• Point Size, from top of cap height and bottom of lowest ascender

Point size

• 1 point = 1/72 inches = 25.4/72 mm = 0.3527mm
• 12 points = 1 pica

Font is the production of the letterform, the physical means to make a typeface, via computer, wood metal etc. A font includes  numbers, upper and lower case, punctuation marks, accents, etc, all called glyphs not letters.

Typeface is the design. It's a collection of characters, letters, numbers, symbols, punctuation which has the same distinct design. The characteristics can change within a Type family.