One of the top accents. Reminds a corner pointing down. Used over vowels and consonants in Lithuanian, Slovak, Slovenian, Croatian, Czech and other languages.

Quotes

Paired punctuation marks used to highlight titles, direct speech, quotations, etc. There are several types of quotation marks used depending on national typographic traditions. In Russia, quotation marks “Christmas trees” (French quotes, guillemots, chevrons) are accepted as the main quotation marks, and if necessary, use a quotation inside a quotation, quotation marks “paws” are used, for example: ““ How boring! “- I exclaimed involuntarily" (Lermontov).

In France, quotation marks are used in much the same way as in Russia, but in Germany, the main Christmas tree quotation marks are used "vice versa". Sometimes single quotation marks are also used. In England, base quotation marks are used 'so', and additional quotation marks are 'so', while in the United States 'such' are considered main quotation marks, and 'such' are additional quotation marks. In some countries, for example, in Finland and Sweden, three types of quotation marks are used at once, but the opening quotation mark does not differ from the closing one: ”so”, ”so” or ’so’. The use of foreign quotation marks in Russian text is a serious, albeit common, typing error. An even worse mistake is the use of the inch sign or arcsecond (") instead of quotation marks. Quotation marks began to be used in typesetting in the 16th century, and in Russia at the end of the 18th century.

Quotation marks - "Christmas trees"

Paired punctuation marks used to highlight names, direct speech, quotations, etc. In France, Italy and Russia they are usually used with points outward, and in Germany, on the contrary, with points inward. In Russia, double quotes-"Christmas trees" are accepted as the main quotes, and if necessary, use a quote inside a quote, double quotes-"paws" are used. Quotation marks began to be used in Russia at the end of the 18th century. The English name for Christmas trees, Guillemots, may have come from the name of a 16th-century French puncher. Guillaume Le Bé, who is supposed to have invented them. The use of foreign type quotation marks in Russian text is a serious, albeit common, typing error. See also Quotation marks.

Quotation marks - "paws"

Paired punctuation marks in the form of two commas used to highlight names, direct speech, quotations, etc. In Russia, “Christmas-tree quotes” (French quotes, guillemots, chevrons) are used as the main quotation marks, and if necessary, use a quote inside a quote. "quotation marks-paws", for example: ""How boring it is!" - I exclaimed involuntarily" (Lermontov). See also Quotation marks.

Calligraphy

The art of beautiful artistic writing. The history of calligraphy is connected with the history of type and writing tools (reed and bird pens, brushes, etc.), as well as with the change in aesthetic and stylistic preferences. Calligraphy was given great importance in the Arab East, as well as in China and Japan, where calligraphy served as one of the means of philosophical comprehension of the world. High examples of calligraphy have been preserved in the European handwritten book of the Middle Ages, as well as in the Byzantine and Old Russian books. Modern Latin calligraphy was revived at the beginning of the 20th century. the work of the English artist and teacher Edward Johnston (Edward Johnston, 1872-1944), who restored the medieval technique of writing with a wide-nib pen.
Calligraphy from Greek. Kalligraphia - beautiful handwriting, from Kallos - beauty and Grapho - I write

Chancellery

Handwritten variety of Gothic fonts. Originated in the 17th - 18th centuries. in Germany as a form of clerical writing. Differs in bizarre and refined forms.
Cancellation from him. Kanzlei - office.

Chancellaresca

Italian Cancellaresca - clerical letter. A type of writing used in the papal office in Rome and in the offices of other European courts during the Renaissance. It was carried out with a wide-nib pen (formal pen) and served as the basis for many typesetting fonts of the 16th century. and more recent times. Among the masters of calligraphy of this type are Ludovico degli Arrighi (c. 1480–1527), Giovanantonio Tagliente (dated 1500–1525) and others.

capital letter

Type of Latin majuscule writing of the period of the Roman Empire (I century BC - V century AD). It has come down to us mainly in the form of inscriptions carved on stone. The most famous example is the inscription on the pedestal of the column of Emperor Trajan (114). A direct prototype of modern European font forms, especially capital ones. Characteristically, there are no spaces between words, sometimes separated by periods.

Capital

A variant of capital letters of reduced height and slightly expanded proportions, slightly higher than the growth of lowercase letters. Appeared in the 16th century. Until now, there is an erroneous idea in Russia that capitals are capital letters in the growth of lowercase ones. The small capital is used in the Latin set for font emphasis in the text, for the set of specific names, titles and abbreviations, as well as for the set of headings and the first lines of sections after a large initial. As a rule, minuscule numbers are used with capitals. In the Cyrillic metal type, the small capital was practically not used, since most of the Russian lowercase letters of the direct style (with the exception of seven: "a", "b", "e", "r", "s", "y", "f") and so repeat the pattern of capital letters. In this regard, in the Cyrillic fonts of the Soviet period, capital signs were practically not made. However, although in Cyrillic the differences between small and small are much less pronounced than in Latin, the use of capitals in Cyrillic can be useful in almost the same cases as in Latin, with the exception of font emphasis. Therefore, capitals are currently being developed in many digital Cyrillic fonts. Replacing true small caps with smaller caps is not acceptable in good typography, as the result is a lighter set.

teardrop element

A drop

Round or oval (teardrop-shaped) end of a stroke in the drawing of some characters of the font.

Carolingian minuscule

The most famous of the medieval minuscule fonts. It arose in the VIII-IX centuries, under the emperor of the Franks, Charlemagne, to whom he owes his name. In the Carolingian minuscule, uppercase letters (based on Roman capital letters) are for the first time deliberately separated in writing from lowercase letters. Later, Lombard versals are used as capitals and initials. Marked the practical end of the formation of graphemes of lowercase Latin letters. It is also characterized by the appearance of spaces between words and punctuation marks. Used throughout the Middle Ages. Served as the basis for the humanistic minuscule of the XIV-XV centuries.

Square

1. One of the basic units of Didot's typometric system, equal to 4 picero, or 48 points. 1 square is equal to 18.048 mm.

2. Blanking material used in the manufacture of typesetting printing plates of the letterpress printing method. Squares are distinguished by size (from 1 to 16 points) and length (1, 3/4 and 1/2 squares). They are used to fill gaps in incomplete lines (at the beginning and end of a paragraph), when typing tables, formulas, in display works.

Square

Handwritten form of Roman capital letters (III-IV centuries). A characteristic feature is wide solemn letters, many of which are close to square in proportion, hence the name.
Square - from lat. Capitalis Quadrata.

quadratic curve

A mathematical representation of a curve using quadratic polynomials. TrueType uses quadratic Bezier curves, while cubic curves are used in PostScript, including Type 1 fonts.

Square brackets

Paired punctuation marks. Brackets that are square. They are used in the formula set and for selections in the text.

Qverti

The name of the standard English keyboard (based on the first six letters). The similar name of the standard Russian keyboard should be "Ytsuken" respectively.

Skittle area

In a metal set - the upper rectangular or square part of the leg of the letter, on which there is a convex (printing) image of a letter or other character (point). The edges of the skittle area are called. letter dimensions. Its height, expressed in typographic points, called. size, and the width - the thickness (total width) of the letter. Lateral dimensions also called. the walls of the letter. The horizontal distance from the wall of the letter to the nearest point on the outline of the character is called. half-ask. In metal type, the size of the skittle area determined all the dimensions of the letter in typesetting and layout. In a digital font, the pin area is only important when designing the font as a rectangle in which the character image fits.

Skittle spacing

A space element that is equal in height and width to the size of the given font (approximately equal to the width of the capital "M").
See also ems.

Kegel veneer

Veneer equal in height to the pin of the set.

Skittle

In metal type, the vertical size of the letter, including the height of the letter (point) and shoulders. The height of the skittle area, expressed in typographical points. Almost all skittles had their own names (nonpareil, pearl, diamond, etc.). In a digital font, the point size is set when typesetting from the keyboard and is measured in typographic points. Approximately corresponds to the height of the lowercase character, plus the size of the ascenders, plus the size of the descenders, plus a certain amount (shoulder), necessary so that the descenders of adjacent lines do not stick together.
Skittles from him. Kegel - size.

kerning

Changing the distance between characters included in certain combinations (kerning pairs), for example: AV, TD, etc. Kerning can be both positive (when the characters move apart) and negative (when the characters move apart into each other). Serves for visual alignment of requests.

Kerning Pairs

Pairs of characters that require additional kerning. The list of these pairs is built into the font file and can reach several hundred or even thousands.
See also Metrics.

Cyrillic

One of the two oldest Slavic alphabets, named after the Slavic enlightener St. Cyril (Konstantin the Philosopher). It is believed that it originated in the 9th century. influenced by the liturgical Greek statutory script. Several handwritten forms of the Cyrillic alphabet are known: Ustav, Poluustav, Cursive and Vyaz. The first book typed in Cyrillic was published in Krakow in 1491 by Schweipolt Feol or Feyol (Schweipolt Feol, Feyl, Feyol), the font for it was cut by Rudolf Borsdorf (Rudolf Borsdorf, Ludolf Borchdorp) from Braunschweig. In 1708–10 Cyrillic script was reformed by imp. Peter I (Civil type), as a result of which the form of Cyrillic characters is much closer to the Latin antiqua. On the basis of the ancient Cyrillic alphabet, modern Belarusian, Bulgarian, Macedonian, Russian, Serbian and Ukrainian alphabets developed, and in the 20-30s. 20th century on the basis of the Russian alphabet, the alphabets of most peoples of the USSR and Mongolia were created.

Typesetting classification

Grouping Fonts for ease of study and handling in accordance with their shape, contrast, serifs, origin, purpose, and other factors. There is no generally accepted classification of typefaces. One of the possible classifications provides for the allocation of groups of serif fonts (antiqua), sans-serif fonts (grotesque), decorative, handwritten, non-alphabetic. Each of these groups can be subdivided into subgroups depending on font forms and other factors.
See the Classification section of this site.

Classic fonts

See New Style Antiqua.

Font encoding

An ordered character set of a font (see Code page). The encoding depends on the operating system for which the font is intended (MS Windows or Mac OS) and is indicated by a standard index or word. For example, the Cyrillic encoding (code page) for MS Windows is designated СР 1251, and for Mac OS - Macintosh Cyrillic. The Cyrillic encoding usually includes lowercase and uppercase characters of the Latin and Russian alphabets, additional lowercase and uppercase characters of national alphabets (Belarusian, Macedonian, Serbian, Ukrainian), numbers, punctuation marks, and other typeset characters.

Code page

A method of storing font information in a computer's memory, including a predetermined ordered standard set of characters (encoding) for typing text in specific languages. The encoding depends on the operating system for which the font is intended (MS Windows or Mac OS) and is indicated by a standard index or word. For example, the Cyrillic encoding (code page) for MS Windows is designated СР 1251, and for Mac OS - Macintosh Cyrillic. The Cyrillic encoding usually includes lowercase and uppercase characters of the Latin and Russian alphabet, additional lowercase and uppercase characters of national alphabets (Belarusian, Macedonian, Serbian, Ukrainian), numbers, punctuation marks, and other typeset characters.

DPI

A unit of measure for the resolution of an output device (monitor or printer). Resolutions above 1200 dpi are considered high, most laser printers are 300-600 dpi and monitors around 72 dpi.

Trajan's Column

Marble column in the Forum of Trajan in Rome. Built ca. 114 in honor of the victory of Emperor Trajan over the Dacians. Covered in a spiral with reliefs depicting episodes of the war. The inscription on its pedestal, which has survived to this day, is considered the best example of Roman capital type.

Font character set

A certain number of characters of a font of the same style, which allows typing text in a particular language. Usually includes lowercase and uppercase characters of a certain alphabet (sometimes capitals), numbers of various kinds, punctuation marks, and other typeset characters. In a digital font, the set of characters is determined by the encoding.

Composite sign

A compound character in a typeface that consists of two parts, such as a letter and an accent above it. Unlike a simple character with an accent, which describes all the outlines (both the character and the accent), the description of a composite character consists only of information about the glyphs of which it consists and their relative position, which saves space in the computer's memory.

computer set

Typing and processing of the text of the publication using a computer in publishing systems, which provides alignment of lines, technical editing and proofreading of the text, page layout, etc.

conic curve

Spline of the second order.

Font Contrast

Characteristic of the font, indicating the ratio of the thickness of the main and connecting strokes. The font can be non-contrast (monoweight), low contrast (low contrast), contrast (contrast) and high contrast (high contrast).

Counterpunch

A stamp used to make recesses in the main punch, forming an intra-letter space.

Sign outline

Sign image border, border between white space and black sign. In a digital font, there are different ways to describe the outline of a sign: with the help of straight line segments, arc segments, reference points and curves of various kinds. Also a closed form, part of the overall shape of the sign. Some signs consist of one, two, three or more contours.

Outline

A decorative style in which each character is formed by a line of varying thickness along the edge of the main outline. Thus, the middle of the outline mark is not sealed (remains white). Used for headings and initials. First appeared at the beginning of the 19th century. Not to be confused with the outline of the sign.

Outline fonts

See Vector Fonts

end element

The end of the stroke without a serif.

Copyright

English copyright - copyright. The sign, which, according to the law of the Russian Federation "On Copyright and Related Rights", the owner of exclusive copyright notifies of his rights and which is printed on each copy of the work. The copyright notice consists of three elements: the Latin letter "C" in a circle, the name (name) of the owner of the exclusive copyright and the year of the first publication of the work.

En dash

The dash is approximately en. Used to indicate a range. Included in all standard digital font encodings. An en dash between numbers does not separate from the previous and following characters. Not to be confused with the minus sign.

Frame

10 point font (~3.51 mm in Pica; ~3.76 mm in Dido). It is used for typing the main text in books and magazines.

Slash

An oblique stroke, usually inclined to the vertical at a smaller angle than a fractional stroke. Serves as a sign of division, used in vocabulary and linguistic typesetting. In some countries, it is customary to use it in a set of dates, addresses, etc. In the Middle Ages, it was used as a form of a comma.

oblique font

Italic font with a left slant. Typically used in cartography.

Cross

See the obelisk

Bezier curves

Mathematical equations used to describe character shapes in digital fonts. Named after the French mathematician Pierre Bézier (1910–99), who developed a mathematical representation for describing curves. PostScript Type 1 fonts use cubic Bezier curves (3rd order curves), while TrueType fonts use a type of curve known as quadratic B-splines.

Crossbar

see crossbar

Round spacing

A whitespace element whose height and width are equal to the point size.
See also Skittle spacing.

Round brackets

Paired punctuation marks. Brackets that have an arcuate shape. They are used in the formula set and for selections in the text.

Circle

One of the top accents. It is used over the vowel A in Danish, Norwegian and Swedish and over the vowel U in Czech, as well as in some others.

cubic curve

A mathematical representation of a curve using cubic polynomials. Cubic Bezier curves are used in the PostScript language, including Type 1 fonts. TrueType uses quadratic curves.

Italics

An italic typeface that differs from the roman type by the more cursive form of lowercase letters. Capital characters are oblique. The English name Italic indicates that such a font first appeared in 1501 in Italy, in the printing house of Aldus Manutius (1447–1515) in Venice. It was cut by the Bolognese engraver Francesco Griffo (Francesco Griffo, c. 1450–1518) on the basis of handwritten italics of the papal office and had no capitals. As a rule, it is now used together with the roman style as a highlight, although Aldus Manutius ordered italics as an independent font with more capacity than the roman serif. It began to be considered as an excretory style (using oblique capital letters) already in the middle of the 16th century.
Italics - from lat. cursivus - running.

All Braille alphabet Alphabetical forms of representation Arabic Armenian alphabet Bengali Burmese Bugi script. Lontara Letter-like characters Buhid Small-size variants Vedic characters Vertical forms Upper part of surrogate pairs for private use Nested letters and months CJK Nested letters and numbers Hexagrams I-Ching Geometric figures Glagolitic Greek and Coptic alphabets Georgian Gujarati Gurmukhi Devanagari Dingbats Additional Latin-1 Additional Extended Latin Additional punctuation marks Additional CJK hieroglyphic clefs Additional combinable diacritics Additional math operators Additional Arabic characters Additional Georgian characters Additional Ethiopic characters Additional arrow-A Additional arrow-B Additional phonetic extensions Punctuation marks CJK compatibility marks Hebrew escape codes characters Kangxi hieroglyphic clefs Indian number symbols Kayah Li Canadian syllabary Kanbun (Chinese) Kannada Katakana Square p Letter from the Pagba Lama Cyrillic Cyrillic. Complementary characters Combinable diacritics Combinable diacritics for characters Combinable halves of characters Combinable Chamo Hangeul Coptic alphabet Khmer script Khmer characters Lao script Lisu Malayalam Mathematical operators International phonetic alphabet Myanmar script. Extension A Ethiopian-A Extended Character Set Superscripts and Subscripts Non-Combinable Extended Modifier Characters Nko New Taily Alphabet Private Use Area Ogham Oriya Script Basic Latin Ol-chik Script Tai Viet Script Limbu Script Tay Ly Script Cherokee Script Cherokee Script (Addendum) ) Halfwidth and fullwidth forms Radicals. Letter and Diverse Mathematical Symbols-A Diverse Mathematical Symbols-B Diverse Symbols Diverse Symbols and Arrows Diverse Technical Symbols Cyrillic Extended A Cyrillic Extended-B Latin Extended C Latin Extended-A Latin Extended-B Latin Extended-D Latin Extended-E Burmese Extended- B Extended Arabic Character Set-A Extended Bopomofo, Zhuyin Extended Greek Character Set Extended Canadian Syllabic Character Set Extended Ethiopic Rejang Runic Samaritan Character Style Selectors Siloti Nagri Currency Symbols Border Drawing Symbols Fill Symbols Symbols and CJK punctuation Tone change symbols Characters for describing hieroglyphs Optical recognition symbols Sinhalese writing Syriac Hangul syllables Syllables. Wai Syllabary Script Compatible CJK Characters Special Characters Old Mongolian Script Arrows Thai Script Tamil Script Tana Telugu Tibetan Script Tifinagh (Old Libyan Script) Unified KJK Characters Unified KJK Characters. Expansion A Control characters Phonetic extensions Phonetic extensions of Katakana Arabic letter-A representation forms Arabic letter-B representation forms Compatibility forms CJK Hangul Chamo Hanunoo Hiragana Cham script Features of KJK Zhuyin. Bopomofo Number Forms Ethiopian Syllabary Javanese Script

I continue my notes on the brim of the hat. I do it more for myself than for anyone else. They do not contain any secret information, everything can be found on Wikipedia or thematic publications, but in the courses I really lack facts and their clear presentation. By default, apparently, it is believed that novice calligraphers should know all this anyway, but since I never learned any of this, the information from books is very poorly absorbed by me - I have to “pronounce” everything again like this, laying it out on the shelves. These are also original reports on the work done - since a similar post appeared, it means that I have finished studying this font. Of course, you can practice any font endlessly, but since I got from the report, it means that I have achieved some success :)

Our today's conversation will be about the main pillar of calligraphy - the Roman capital font.

Roman classical writing finally took shape in the 1st century. during the heyday of the Roman Empire. It was inextricably linked with architecture, as an integral part of it, in the unity of style and rhythm. This determined the laws of its construction, proportions, the pattern of letters, their strict arrangement between two lines of type, which were echoed by horizontal serifs.

I.T. Bogdesko, Calligraphy.

The most important thing to know about a capital font is that it is very calculated and geometrically verified. Of course, each calligrapher twirls any font as he wants, but if other fonts have something of their own that needs to be captured, then with Roman capital everything is simple - everything has been calculated there for a long time, no need to bother. Of course, how the Romans calculated all this, we will never know, but in the Renaissance (that same Roman antiquity), fanatics were very confused about geometry in everything and calculated everything for us. If desired, in any letter of the Roman capital, you can calculate everything - up to the angle and length of each serif. The font proportions are 1:10 and correspond to the Tuscan order in architecture. We will not go into details: Tuscan is a simplified version of Doric, and everyone knows everything about the latter :)

Roman capital is, of course, not the font of ancient Roman inscriptions on tombstones and other garbage. And not even a renaissance font. Already in our time, it was analyzed by a certain Edward Katic, a Catholic priest and calligrapher, who roughly calculated all the turns of the pen when drawing letters. Here it should be noted that the pen has to be twisted this way and that, outlining all the bends, which is why in most textbooks the Roman capital is discussed only at the very end as a rather difficult font to execute. For ease of mastering, we first write out the letters with a brush, and only then with a pen (above - a composition made with a brush, below - a copy from the work of J. Larcher, made with a pen).

However, since all the other fonts came out, in fact, from the Roman capital font (or the Trajan’s Column font - in short, the Trajans defeated the Dacians for a reason, hehe), it’s quite logical to first learn it, and then master all the other fonts. Actually, this is how it turns out, because everything that happened after is a simplified version of the Roman capital and variations on the theme. Well, with the exception of Cyrillic fonts, perhaps. But more about them some other time.
In the next series of our epic, I will talk about the typeface "Humanist" and the basic typeface of Johnston, in order to understand the difference between them for myself %) Thank you for being with us!