Baseline: The line upon which most letters “sit” and below which descenders extend.

Typography Breakdown

Cap Height: The height of a capital letter that goes above the median.

Descender (height): The portion of a letter in a Latin alphabet that extends below the baseline of a font.

Median (Also known as Mean Line or Mid-Line): The line that determines where non-ascending lowercase letters terminate in a typeface.

x-Height: The distance between the baseline and the mean line in a typeface. Typically, this is the height of the letter x in the font (which is where the terminology comes from).

Sans-Serif: A san-serif (san meaning without) is a letterform that does not have serifs as part of its design. Popular san-serif fonts include Helvetica, Arial, and Futura.

Serif: A slight projection found at the ends of a letterform. Popular serif fonts include Garamond, Times, and Bodoni.

Examples of Sans-Serif and Serif fonts

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Brand examples: Google, Starbucks, and Walmart

Combination Logo: A logo design that takes both graphical and typographic elements (usually the companies name) and combines them into a unified logo. Sometimes these elements can be used independently of one another such as the name McDonald’s and the “golden arches” graphic.

Combination Logo Examples: Pepsi, Audi

Corporate Identity: A company’s name, logo, typeface, colors, and slogan are all elements that help comprise an identity presented to the public.

Font: (See typeface)

Glyph: Used to refer to a character or symbol that represents an object or idea.

Logo: (Short for logotype) A logo is a graphical element (ideogram, symbol, emblem, icon, sign) that, together with its logotype (a uniquely set and arranged typeface) form atrademark or commercial brand. (McDonald’s, Apple, Nike Swoosh)

Style Guide: A document that clearly defines the rules and standards of how a logo and accompanying branding elements should be used.

Tagline: A typically short statement or motto that defines the essence of a brand’s promise.

Typeface: (Also known as a font) A set of letters, numerals, and punctuation marks that is designed with stylistic unity in mind. Typefaces can come in a variety of groups called “families” which denotes a particular subset of styles within a particular typeface: i.e. bold, oblique, condensed, etc.

Wordmark: A stylized text-only treatment of a typeface that makes it easily recognizable as a specific brand.

Wordmark logo examples: Yahoo!, eBay, and Coca-Cola

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CMYK: (Short for cyan, magenta, yellow, and key (black) This process uses these four colors to produce an image and is often referred to as the four color process.

Pantone®/PMS (Pantone Matching System): Pantone is the company that makes the Pantone Matching System , a color standard created through the mixture of different primary inks. This helps give designers and clients an idea of how a color will look when printed.

Raster: An image that is made of small colored pixels in a grid formation that, when viewed from a distant, create the allusion of a unified image. When smaller raster images get blown up to big you can begin to see the pixels that make up the image, creating a fuzzy overall look to the image.

RGB: (Short for red, green, blue) This is the set of colors used to display all images on a computer screen and is the color system used for website graphics.

Vector: An image using points, lines, curves, and shapes that are created through mathematical calculations. This means an image can be infinitely enlarged and is ideal for the creation of logos which may be placed on anything from an envelope to the side of a building.

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