Picas & Points

Measurements

in the

Graphic Communications

0

1

2

1/2

1/2

Measure - Strokes Font Size Leading

Inch

es

Measurement System

• POINT SYSTEM: Graphic arts measuring system that was created because they had to work with smaller units of measurement than inches.

• The standard units of measurement arePOINT and PICA

• 1 inch = 6 picas• 1 pica = 12 points• 1 inch = 72 points

Measuring Device

• LINE GAUGE: Graphic Arts ruler. A device used to measure type sizes and line lengths in points and picas.

• Also known as E-Scale

Measure Strokes Length

• Length of strokes are measured in Picas

• Abbreviation for Pica is “P” Example: 8P

• If not a whole Pica then the remaining measurement is measured in points. NO: 8 1/2P

YES: 8P6p

Measure Strokes Width

• Weight of stroke is measured in Points

• Abbreviation for Points is “pt” when used alone or a lowercase “p” when used with Picas

• Example: 1 pt 8P6p

Letterform Terms

• ASCENDER: refers to the parts of a lowercase letter that is above the font’s body-height

• DESCENDER: refers to the parts of a lowercase letter that fall below the font’s body-height

typeAscender

Descender

body-height

Measure Type Size

1. Identify an ascender and draw a line above.

2. Identify a descender and draw a line below.

3. Measure between each line using the points scale on the line gauge.

4. You always measure between an Ascender and a Descender line.

• Note: if an ascender or descender does not exist in the copy - imagine where it might be and draw the line above or below that area.

Measure Type Size

= Type SizeTypestyles

= Type SizeFontp

Type Size

• Display Type: Type is 14 points or larger and is used for headings.

• Body Type: Type is 13 points or less and is used for paragraphs

Leading

• LEADING: amount of space between lines of type, measured in points.

• Also known as linespacing

Leading comes from lead strips that were put between set lines. When type was set by hand in printing presses, slugs or strips of lead of appropriate thicknesses were inserted between lines of type to add vertical space, to fill available space on the page.

Measure Leading

Determine the…• BASE LINE: An imaginary line drawn along bottom of body-height letters for

each line of text.

Leading

or Linespacing

Base line

Measure Leading

• Measure from base line to base line.

Use base lines to measure the leading.

Base line

Leading Size

Questions

• The headline of a newspaper would be called what kind of type? Display Type

• What is leading? Space between lines of type

• What units of measurement are used in the graphic communications industry? Picas and points

• How many picas are in 2 inches? 12 picas

Questions

• What two lines do you measure between to determine a type size? Ascender line and the Descender line

• What do you do when a descender or ascender is not present when measuring type? Imagine/create one

• How do you determine the leading? Measure baseline to baseline