Parts of the Letter

It is amazing to me how many different parts there are that come together to form all of the different

letters of the alphabet, lowercase and uppercase. It makes complete sense when you think about 

typography that every single piece, every stroke, every mark, that makes up a letter would need a name so that when you talk about a font

or how a letter is written you know which piece is being talked about, but before reading this piece I would have never thought to give a name to the ear on a lowercase g, or the barb on an uppercase C. The need for these names for each and every part of a letter becomes even more relevant when you examine and notice how utilizing or not utilizing certain parts of a letter in certain fonts changes the feel of the font overall. In many cases certain parts of the letters I look at as almost flourishes, not really doing much for the identification of the letter itself, but giving the letter personality in its font so you can tell the kinds of emotion or feeling that the words that each letter is making up is trying to convey. 

All to often I think typography is over looked by the day to day world, and I think that's why I am so drawn to it and interested in it. Type has more effect than most of the world would ever notice, or care to admit, and I love that by just choosing how a word is presented and the font that a word is written in can have so much effect though commonly seemingly unnoticed.