Typophile

Font Size?

•Prakash Nair

Heres a question for ya. Actually my professor asked it. “If you maximize the x-height, ascenders and descenders of a particular glyph, does that mean the glyph gets larger in measurement?”

Maximize=increase the length vertically.

My thinking is no because the width and the stroke contrast remains the same.

Any ideas guys?

technically no, optically yes.

or maybe not?

when you say ’maximize’…

If you maximize the x-height, ascenders and descenders of a particular glyph, does that mean the font gets bigger?”

How would the font get bigger if you only made a particular glyph bigger? I am confused. Also, if you are talking about optimizing the use of the whole EM for small point sizes to make them read better, you maximize the x-height att he expense of the ascenders and descenders.

If you mean increase the vertical scale of a glyph then the glyph horizontal measurement gets smaller, like cod condensing, the stroke contrast wouldn’t remain the same though. I think you need to put the question in a different way.
Tim

You changed the question. (And added the “maximize” elaboration.)
What did your prof ask, exactly?

Anyway, now it can potentially make sense, and the answer would be “no”,
because the font has to fit within its size-less bounds*, and making all three
parts bigger in an instance makes nothing bigger in the abstract.

* Except if it’s a swoopy, dainty script face. But still.

hhp

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