Glyph

A glyph is a single visual representation of a character in a typeface. A typeface contains many glyphs: not just the 26 letters of the alphabet in upper and lower case, but also numerals, punctuation marks, ligatures, diacritical marks, currency symbols, and special characters. Some typefaces include multiple glyph variants for the same character — alternative forms of letters, stylistic sets, old-style numerals versus lining numerals, and so on. For logo designers working with type, the glyph panel in design software provides access to the full range of characters and variants available in a typeface. Sometimes a typeface includes an alternate glyph for a particular letter that is more suitable for a logo application — a single-storey 'a' instead of a double-storey one, for instance, or a letterform with a more distinctive terminal. Exploring the full glyph set of a typeface before settling on a wordmark design can reveal unexpected opportunities.