Design Nomenclature / Type

Aperture

The opening through which a partly enclosed counter connects to the space around the letter — the gap between the terminals of c and s, the mouth of a, e and the top of n. Open apertures keep c distinct from o and e from a under blur and at small sizes; closed, folded-in apertures lose those distinctions first.

The word 'aces' twice on one baseline, headed 'open aperture' and 'closed aperture'. Frutiger and Helvetica both substitute to Arial — printed under each specimen — so the two are the same word in the same face, and a footnote says the difference cannot be set here. The figure names the distinction; it does not draw it.

In practice

The measurable half of "legible typeface" marketing. When a face is sold as accessible, the aperture and the Il1 test are what to check before the claim.

Not to be confused with

How this term connects

BoumaCounterGrotesqueHumanist sansLegibilityNeo-grotesqueOptical sizeTerminalAperture
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