Ever since the book came out I’ve had several needs for an even more compact version of the anatomy chart from the introduction — one that explains as many basic terms as possible within a few glyphs. Here’s a stab at it, initially made for a Letterform Archive workshop. Yes, there are many parts missing here (e.g., apex, overshoot, or shoulder — the connection between straight and curved strokes), but them’s the breaks when you’re working in a small space with limited characters. Share this image freely, but please link back here.

Ed Benguiat (1927–2020, RIP) tossed together a spread in Ed Rondthaler’s 1981 book, Life With Letters, that arguably remains the best type anatomy diagram ever. One could quibble about a few omissions and the odd definition for “tittle” (maybe one of his jokes), but it’s damn near perfect. I should have just put this at the front of my book and been done with it. Here’s a larger image.

A glossary of terminology relating to digital fonts and typefaces; defininitions and descriptions for typographic features

Back when I was with the creative team at FontShop, we built a little glossary to help customers become smarter font shoppers. That section of their site has grown into one of the most exhaustive sources of typography terms online, complete with handy illustrations and cross-references. We opened that page with a compact illustration of basic type anatomy (above). It’s pretty good — and set in one of my favorite typefaces, FF Clifford — but the set of diagrams in The Anatomy of Type is more clear and comprehensive.

A spread from the introductory section of The Anatomy of Type This image was generated from one of the book’s final PDFs, but we made one more edit before we sent the book to press. Can you spot the missing label?

Typographic Poster