Friday, April 20, 2018

Answer: A few typographic questions?

The naming of parts... 

... can be tricky, but figuring out WHAT the parts of different things are called is an important SearchResearch skill.  

Let's jump right into it (especially since this post is a couple of days late--see at the end for details)... 

1.  What's this part of the numeral 1 called? (That is, the thing sticking like a flange off the front.  Here I've circled it with a yellow dotted oval.) 

Short answer:  It's call an arm, but you could be forgiven for calling it a serif, an ear, or a leg, since they're all close in meaning.  

Here's what I did to search for this. 

My go-to method for looking for the names of parts-of-things is to do an image search with the context term "diagram" -- like this: 
     [ typography parts of a numeral diagram ] 
I admit that I rapidly went through a bunch of queries kind of like this: 
     [ typography font parts diagram ] 
     [ typography font number diagram ] 
and so on until I found that first one which gave me a bunch of diagrams with all of the parts of different characters with neat labels on them.  There are MANY such diagrams, and they're not all consistent, but here's one that I like from Carson Park Design, Sans and Serif.  This is just the relevant bit of their beautiful diagram: 

Their PDF has a nice set of examples of different parts of characters, including the definition of an arm (or leg) as a "..a horizontal stroke that is free on one end."  
This is different than a serif which is a stroke added as a stop to the beginning and end of the main strokes of a character.  Historically it comes from the way characters were chiseled into stone in Roman typography.  

And of course, variations in typeface design can sometimes make it difficult to tell if it's a serif or an arm / leg / ear.  

And, confusingly, some numeral 1s don't have anything!  This is a Gill Sans number 1, which is terrible (in my opinion), especially when its used for part numbers or codes (e.g., I11i)  

Odd thing, I love Gill Sans in general, just not the choice about the I's and the 1s.  

2.  What this line that connects these two characters called? 
Can we use that same context term trick here?  
Yes, you can, and it works fine.  But I found that the query: 
     [ typography connected characters examples ] 
actually works better.  Why? Because here I'm looking for a definition, and not so much a diagram that labels the parts.  
In any case, the Sans and Serif diagram we saw before actually has a nice example of what connected characters are called:  

Just to check if this is a ligature for S and T, I did the query: 
     [ ligature "s t" ] 
and found a bunch of examples:  

On the other hand, if you dig deeply enough (and Miguel Luís clearly pointed out in the comments), you'll find that this connecting line is called a gadzook, and that the pair of letters + the gadzook is collectively called a ligature. 

But as we've discussed before, sometimes the language changes even during your own lifetime.  
This image is from Chris Do's beautiful animated video about many typographic terms.  -- check out the swash at 2:00 and the gadzook at 2:56 

3.  You often see elaborate / decorative characters in type.  Collectively, what are these kinds of characters called?  (This is handy to know if you want to search for them.) 

I admit that this was a bit of an open-ended question.  What I was trying to convey was the idea of the extended strokes--the decorative tail on the A and Z, and the little decorative serif-looking thing at the top of the A.  
I initially did this search by using a Reverse Dictionary, and searching for: 
     [ decorative fonts ] 
and found a lot of terms, but the first one I didn't know in the list was "swash."  What does that mean in the context of typography?  
I did a define: 
     [ define swash ] 
and found that the second definition is what I was looking for: 

This makes sense.  Now, armed with "swash" as a new term, I could do a search for: 
    [ swash typography example ] 
and find all kinds of interesting examples, like this one in Zapfino: 
It's a very calligraphic look, which is what swash is all about.  

4.  Every so often I want to use a character that I KNOW exists, but I don't know the name, so it's hard to find and I'm reduced to manual search.  Here are a couple of such characters.  What are they?  More importantly, how did you find out their names? 

There are many ways to find these characters.  Here's what I did for each: 
1.  What's that upside down A character?  I tried the obvious search: 
     [ upside down A character ] 
and found that "...The upside-down A symbol is the universal quantifier from predicate logic." 
It just means "for all"  as in the expression, "for all values of X, this statement is true..."  For example: 
        ∀ SRS topics X, Remmij will post something on 
2. For the ß character, I did a draw-special-character in Google Docs. 
As you remember, if you create a new doc in Google Docs, you can "Insert Special Character," and draw it in the box on the side, like this: 

Notice that it tells you what this character is ("Latin Small Letter Sharp S"), although it does note that it also looks like a Greek Beta symbol.  
But if I search for: 
     [ sharp s ] 
I land on the Wikipedia page about "Sharp S" (aka Eszett, or Sharfe S).  

3.  I did the same trick with the 3rd character, and found that it's called a thorn character.  The thorn (more properly, the þorn character) is a letter in the Old English, Gothic, Old Norse and modern Icelandic alphabets.   Capital:  Þ, Miniscule form: þ
As Luís and Remmij both pointed out, the web site Shapecatcher does exactly this--you draw in the character, and it identifies it for you.  

Search Lessons 

1. You can search for characters by using the insert special character method in Google Docs.  Easy, and it opens up the world's orthography to you.  

2. Context terms can be really useful, especially when looking to labeled diagrams of things that you don't know.  "Diagram" is my favorite, but note that these context terms vary from language to language.  You'd use schema in German to find more-or-less the same thing. 

What's your favorite context term in your language?

Or, what's your favorite context term in English?  (I'm always finding new ones.  Are there ones you know about that you'd like to share with us?) 

Search on!  


Why is this post delayed?  

Well, it's the conference time of year, and this year I'm in Montreal for the Computer-Human Interaction conference in Montréal, Canada.  Just before coming here, I was visiting Dalhousie University in Halifax, just a 90 minute flight away from Montréal.  

To make things more complicated, I'm finishing up work on my book... so THAT's taking time as well.  

But I'll be back next week, on Wednesday, with a new Challenge.  

Stay tuned for even more searching...


  1. ∀ Googley topics X, Remmij will post something on — am stressing under the pressure/compulsion to imgurrrrrrrrrr something…
    Google Docs - I thought it was the 'Plex infirmary crew…
    Shift + CTRL + C. Could be handy
    context term - list or "tetlh", would 'best' be one?
    what happened to the "good old days"? Qumran
    ⌘F is helpful (try internet - who knew, universal?)
    list/context SERP [list of context terms]
    4/20 in Montréal - the conference could have been in Boulder…
    Dan, il peut être difficile de naviguer le week-end à Montréal ...
    juste dire - avoir de l'aide sur la numérotation abrégée ou l'Assistant Google

    Weekend Jams
    "In 2018, we will celebrate the 50th anniversary of The Mother of all Demos, in which Douglas Engelbart demonstrated the revolutionary and future-predicting oN-Line System (NLS). To celebrate, we are hosting the CHI Expo – a reception on Monday night that will focus on interacting with the technology of the future." hmmmm, I read ""Mother of all Demons…" or was it Les Demoiselles d'Avignon… something French.
    Zapt… 20 years old
    Z Arabic
    ZA in motion

  2. Dear Dan,

    This post is is very interesting.
    Now, could you recommend a good "research skills" curriculum for my school to follow?


  3. I, as many times, try Dr. Russell's answer in Spanish to find new things.

    This time tried [[ typography parts of a numeral diagram ] [ tipografía diagrama partes numerales ]

    Tipografía (PDF)
    by UDLAP
    as Dr. Russell have told us, I removed part of the URL (capitulo2.pdf) and found more chapters. I still need to read those.

    Among many things, interesting are:

    1. El 3 de octubre de 1932 el periódico TIMES fue impreso por primera vez con la fuente Times New Roman. Times printed with Times New Roman for the first time on October 3rd, 1932.


    1. Ramón, the Spanish search payed off - wouldn't have seen these otherwise - thanks
      cocoa powder & surface tension
      or this:
      Voronoi diagrams
      Font Meme
      my fonts
      …meanwhile, on that nearby cratery orb —
      a lunar/earthly typo… might have read: "…WE OPENED A CAN OF WHOOP-ASS FOR ALL GENDERKIND MAMMALIANS … but WHIRLED PEAS ARE GOOD TOO!" ;-P
      " “HERE MEN FROM THE PLANET EARTH FIRST SET FOOT UPON THE MOON, JULY 1969, WE CAN IN PEACE FOR ALL MANKIND”" (does change the search for the phrase…)
      lunar type
      a Russian summary
      Futura/Paul Renner
      "How sustainable Renner's typeface actually was was to prove in 1969: The stainless steel plaque attached to the head of the Apollo 11 Landing Module bears the inscription: "HERE MEN FROM THE PLANET EARTH FIRST SET FOOT UPON THE MOON JULY 1969 AD WE CAME IN PEACE FOR ALL MANKIND ".The text was set in Futura. The NASA staff had probably previously seen this font on the movie posters for Stanley Kubrick's "2001: A Space Odyssey." The landing module remained on the moon - and with it the Futura. To promise a glorious future not only to the inhabitants of the earth, but also to future moon visitors with their unparalleled élan and the glimmer of the bright spirituality of ancient Rome."

    2. Hello Remmij!
      Glad you liked it and thanks for sharing your links. I also didn't know about Voronoi.
      Reading your links and noticing the connection, you found, between our last 2 SRS Challenges Typographic and 2001 movie, decided to search more about Futura

      [Futura font history]

      You’ve never used the real Futura.

      Know your type: Futura

      [futura font famous users]

      Interesting links too and reading them, found a mention about mobile font and Android
      Among the thousands of features on your smartphone, one you’ve probably never thought about is which fonts it uses Roboto

      And, that made me remember an article

    3. Ramón - your ongoing searches are fruitful and you make a good point about the activity jogging memories and making connections -
      one of the benefits/curses of deeper search… the rabbit holes are often extensive and lead to unexpected places.
      …from the Roboto article - this is my word of the day now: “grotesk” or 'grotesque'
      Kimou Meyer - see info
      on instagram
      the tee-oui-it-her
      in the comics - Grotesk, Gortokian
      there must be a font IDer tool SERP… well, of course there is, even a Chrome extension
      is instagram big in MX?
      instaMx SERP – is fb crunching & extracting all the data?
      SERP [instagram owner] People also ask:
      "Is Mark Zuckerberg the owner of Instagram?
      Eduardo Munoz/Reuters In April 2012, Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg did the unthinkable. With the company about to begin its IPO roadshow, Zuckerberg made a surprise acquisition of a two-year-old photo-sharing app called Instagram.Jan 30, 2016"

  4. a one second fragment from the past… or future, sometimes it's hard to recall which…
    from Philae