Form

The form of a letter refers to its shape. Characters can have the same structure but different "forms." For instance, a capital letter "G" has the same structure as a lowercase "g" in the same family. But their actual forms, or shapes, are very different from each other. An easy way to think of form is to think of caps versus lowercase.

This graphic illustrates the difference in form between an upper case letter and its lowercase version.

This graphic illustrates how the profile of a word changes when seen in all lowercase and all caps.

Top The first line of type is roman and the second line is italic. They are both Norfet; their structures are exactly the same, but their forms(shapes) are different.

Middle Particularly notice that "true dawn" italic(first line) is not simply slanted roman (second line). The letter forms have actually been redrawn into different shapes. Look carefully at the differences between f,a,g,y and e.

Bottom Sans serif faces usually have "oblique" versions,which look like letters tilted. Their roman and oblique forms are not so very different from each other.

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