Typography

You need to make capital letters an inch high, and you need to know the point size, correct? The answer is, it depends on the font.Look at these three letters:

Wxy

There are two measurements most type has: point size and x-height. Point size, in our example, is from the top of the W to the bottom of the descender of the y. x-height is what it sounds like. Some fonts, like Machine, don't have minuscule letters so there's no x-height for them.

In other words, a 72-point capital letter won't be an inch high because that 72 points takes into account descenders.

To make inch-high letters, draw two horizontal guides an inch apart, type your text with the baseline on the bottom one, then scale up the type until it touches the top one.

The "x-height" of a typeface is height of lower-case letters. More specifically, this refers to the non-ascender/non-descender letters (ascenders being those with ascending parts that rise above the midline, the tall letters b, d, f, h, k, l,and descenders being those letters with tails that drop below the baseline, typically g, j, p, q, y; this does, of course vary with the design of the typeface: some typefaces will have a descender z, such as many cursive fonts, and other nuances, and some are entirely without descenders. X-height is literally the height of the lowercase letters such as x (obviously), v, w and z. Letters with curves at the top and bottom (c, o, s, e, n, u) can be spoken of as having the same x-height, although technically, rounded letters usually slightly taller than the x, for optical balance.

The x-height of a typeface is important for several reasons. Most importantly, the x-height determines the top/bottom center of mass for a line of type, since in most situations, there are relatively few uppercase letters, and the ascending portions of letters are visually very insignificant. X-heights contribute a great deal to the way a typeface sets. Much of typography is less a matter of objective measurements than it is subjective perception and feel. For example, a typeface with a large x-height is generally easier to read at smaller type sizes, being generally larger and less cramped, while small x-heights can impact legibility. They can also appear somewhat chunkier on the page, since the x-height contributes the majority of a line of type's substance.

On the other hand, type with a large x-height tends to appear to take up more space on a line, making text areas on a page appear somewhat darker and denser in color, and lines may need comparatively more leading (line spacing) to preserve an ideal page color and texture. Large x-heights can also make a typeface look bulky and round.

Enterprise-wide color-schemes and typefaces are a common fixture in most corporate identity and branding programs. Most national and global brands adopt strict policies for corporate communications, specifically to include advertising and marketing materials that are a fixture of brand advertising.

Brand advertising is common for products and services available anywhere, or for those with a distribution network of franchisees. The marketers of "National brand" products, such as Coca-Cola, Hershey's Chocolate, Cheerios, Dove soap, etc, truly don't care where a customer goes to buy the product: everyone sells their brand. Similarly, automotive franchises such as Kia, Ford, and Mercedes-Benz don't care very much where their products are purchased: they can only be purchased from their designated franchise holders & authorized dealers. As such, all advertising of such products supports the sale... whenever and wherever it occurs.

However, because the brand may market independently from an individual store (for example, Ford Motors advertises directly, and individual franchise stores also advertise without much coordination; Also, accessory producers may make mention of their products, or in outdoor banners designed for a sponsored charity golf tournament. Similarly, McDonald's might make mention of Coca-Cola in their advertising, or the local Winn-Dixie or Circle-K might use a brand's images in their sales flyers, or to develop window stickers and posters. There is a great deal of potential for this to be done in a haphazard and counterproductive way.

But, there's much incentive to do it in an organized fashion; any parent knows that children begin recognizing the distinctive colors, typographies, and layouts of brands, long before they are able to read even one letter. This unique visual identitydefines a brand, and leverages psychological and neurological principles to help consumers recognize their favorite brands faster, and allow the brand symbols to trigger their memories directly, and even subconsciously. Standard colors, layouts and typography enable a brand to maintain a consistent look and feel, across every marketing channel, even when the marketing messages and materials are developed independently by thousands of individual ad agencies, stores, partners, and organizations. This way, the distinctive look and feel of a brand and its message is instantly recognizable to consumers on an automatic and instinctive level, and all marketing efforts reinforce each other.

So, to tap into this hidden treasure trove of psychological capital, brands develop style guides and advertising/media guides to ensure that this is precisely what happens. Usually, these guides will consist of lengthy discussion of what ideals and character a brand desires to convey, usage rules for logos and brand images, recommended (or required) font families (sometimes proprietary), and color swatches that define precise color combinations for different media: screen, digital printing, and spot single-color inks. The result is often magical. A simple sales letter without a style treatment is average in impact. Closely adhering to corporate styles enables that same sales letter to leverage decades of pre-existing jingles, television ads, magazine ads, movies, television and more and be immediately recognized and trusted by invoking the power, not of a new marketing message, but of an existing visual identitythat has already been firmly established within the consumer's mind.