Type Anatomy (Part 2)

The aperture is the opening of a counter — negative space in partially enclosed characters — formed by letter edges. Like there's no doorstep without the door, there's no aperture without a counter. Both of them exist in letters such as C, S, and n.

The foot is the part of the stem that rests on the baseline and can be with or without serifs. For example, capital M or H/h have both feet on the "floor," while F and f have one foot. 

The hook is the prominent curved stroke found in the terminal of the lowercase f, J, and j. As with some other typography terms, it was named after a real-life object it resembles — a fish hook.

A swash is an exaggerated decorative terminal, entry stroke, or tail found more often in serif italic typefaces. They date back to the 16th century, when, inspired by handwriting styling, they found their way into serif fonts.^[1] Swashes fall into 3 categories:

• Fancy capitals. Back in time, you could meet swash capitals at the beginning of a sentence. Nowadays, typographers often use them to draw attention and start a paragraph, chapter, or article, while the rest of the text is written in a less fancy typeface.
• Beginning and ending characters. They can be found on uppercase or lowercase characters as horizontal decorative strokes.
• Stylistic swashes. Those extravagant swashes exist for adding an elegant extension to a descender.^[2]

The stem serves as the plant's core axis in biology, supporting leaves, buds, and roots. In typography, the stem is a vital part too. It's a vertical or near-vertical, full-length stoke found in upright letters, such as K/k, t, L/l, etc.

A stroke is a general term that refers to any horizontal, vertical, or diagonal line that makes up the main parts of a character. Strokes may be straight, like in w, k, and l, or curved, like in c, o, and s.

It's easy to confuse the stroke with a stem, which is a type of stroke. As an example, some letterforms with two diagonals, like A or V, have a stem (often the first stroke) and an arm (the supporting diagonal).^[3]

A spur is a subtle, small projection from a letter's curve, often found on the uppercase G. It's smaller than beaks and serifs and can be considered one of the tiniest typographic elements. This accent also extends at the top and bottom of the uppercase C and S.

The spine is a remarkable term as it's reserved for one letter only. Typography speaking, it's the primary curved stroke seen on the letters S and s. Due to the element's resemblance to the human spine, it made perfect sense to name it this way. Depending on the typeface, the spine can be almost vertical or horizontal.

Loop aka lobe is the fully or partially enclosed counter that sits below the baseline found on a double-story g. The bowl and the loop are connected by a link, together forming the letter g.

The flag is a decorative curved horizontal stroke that you can find in figure 5. The black letter script was used in the Middle Ages to create manuscript books and documents throughout Europe.^[4] Remarkably, certain letters like b, d, f, h, or k contained flaglike serifs on their ascenders that, in some resources, are also referred to as flags.^[5]

The shoulder is the curved stroke found on a lowercase h, m, and n. Depending on the typeface, the shoulder can be curvy and sloping, as well as angled and sharp. Just like the shoulders of an actual human being!

Sometimes, the shoulder is called an arc which is justified due to the resemblance to the curved part of a circle and the arch — the architectural vertical curved structure.

In typeface anatomy, the link is the short, usually curved stroke that connects the top and bottom bowls found on a lowercase g.

In some sources, you can find the term "neck" to describe the part supporting the "head" of a g.

A ligature represents a combination of two or more letters into a single character. Some ligatures illustrate specific sounds or words, such as the Æ or æ diphthong ligature. Other ligatures, such as the fl and fi, exist primarily for stylistic reasons and are meant to make the typeface more attractive.

• Standard ligatures, like fi, fl, ff, ffi, ffl, ft, tend to create a smoother connection between characters to replace unattractive and sometimes illegible collisions. To do so, they may connect crossbars, remove dots over the i and j, or otherwise modify the characters' shape.
• Discretionary ligatures, like ct, fs, st, or sp, have a more decorative purpose and often create an old-fashioned and elegant look to the text.^[6]