These are the bulk of the many pieces that make up the anatomy of a typeface. You do not need to memorize them, but you should know a few key ones. I’d recommend trying to remember ascender, axis, contrast, counter, descender, serif, and stress. I don’t mean to downplay the importance of the other definitions; each is uniquely important. At the very least, this visual should help you grasp the complexity of each glyph.

Clicking on any of the pieces of anatomy will bring up the definition and a larger image. Within the definitions you may see words in italics; these are other anatomy terms you can reference in this section.

Quiz