The Letter “B” — The Architecture Behind
This article is for people who have already gone through some basic introduction in the world of calligraphy, typefaces and design. What you will need to be able to relate to this article is knowing the anatomy of type. In the future there will be an article exploring the overall anatomy of letters but for now if you are curious just Google it.
There is a lot written on the history of each of the letters in the Latin alphabet. As many of you may know by now the ancestor of the Latin script started with capital letters only and with time the lowercase letters appeared. This helped reading speed immensely. Here we will review both the upper and lowercase forms of the letter “B”.
Letters can be organized into groups with similar design characteristics. Round forms, Square forms, Double-story letters and so on. The letter “B” goes into the “hybrid” category of round-square forms. Let’s start with the serifs.
Serif Capital “B”
The serif letter “B” is one of the hardest letters to draw in calligraphy but that doesn’t mean we should be afraid! Since it has the characteristics of both “E” and “O” we have to be familiar with both of them and know how to apply them carefully.
The “B” usually has the same stem width as the letter “E”.
The “B” usually has the same stem width as the letter “E” along with similar character width and its lobes can have an axis depending on the typeface it’s drawn in. Of course width can vary depending on the time period or style the typeface represents. Since the whole typeface shares the same axis — be it slanted, straight or none — the letter “O” and the lobes of “B” have similar characteristics too.
Like the “E” the waist of the “B” is not in the mathematical center of the letter but slightly above it.
This leads to the bottom lobe being bigger both in height as well as in width. It’s important to remember this because such optical adjustments are made with a purpose — if the optical correction doesn’t exist the top lobe of the letter will appear bigger than its counterpart.
In drawing this letter we should be very careful with the ratio of the letter size to the stroke width we are using. We have many strokes to draw so it’s very easy to make the letter too dark. By dark we mean the overall color of the letter. Squeeze your eyes so your vision becomes blurry and you will start seeing the letter as a big blob of color. The balancing of darkness is very important because in a typeface we can’t have one letter appear darker than the others or we ruin the fluidity of the reading experience.
The brain doesn’t read letters. It perceives words by their shapes so having one letter darker than the rest will make us focus on it and diminish the overall readability of the text.
Serif Lowercase “b”
The lowercase serif “b” consists of only three parts or even two depending on who you ask — a stem, a bowl and its serifs. In most typefaces not only “b” but also “q”, “d” and “p” have the same basic construction but they are not just rotated copies of each other.
The bowls of these letters will still be drawn on an axis if the rest of the typeface has one. You may have seen many typefaces where you have thought that one of these letters is only a line/stem and a circle but truth is nothing in typography is as simple as it seems. There is always optical compensation involved and it largely differs between exactly these letters because we have different placement of the bowl and the stem. There are also differences in the serifs of these letters. They are not simply mirrored although they share common problems with the issue of thick joints which need to be reduced like in many other letters.
The Serifs
As we found out in the paragraph above there are major differences in the serifs.
In the same typeface “b” and “q” may have spurs while “d” may have a foot. This is generally the rule for older typefaces. In typefaces from newer periods like the slab serifs they may all end with flat feet.
The Joints and optical refinements
The places where two elements of a letter connect is called a joint. In the case of the letter “b” the joints that exist are between the stem and the bowl. If we are drawing the letter with a flat tipped pen we will see that it’s very hard to reduce the joint as needed but this is no problem in digital typography. Usually this is done by either putting the end of the stem at an angle or reducing the thickness of the bowl near the joint. Reducing the joints reduces the overall darkness of the letter which is a device that can help us bring harmony throughout the typeface.
Sans-Serif Capital “B”
Many of the things that apply to the serif form of “B” apply here too. Again we can see similarities with the letter “E”. The general shape of the sans-serif letter is kept. In half of the typefaces you can think of the “B” is just an extension of “E” with the lobes following after the arms.
A big thing here is that instead of having a lot of reduction in the joint area we may have ink traps. Ink traps are spaces specifically cut for optical balancing and improvements in print. In modern times they are used as decorative elements too.
Sans-Serif Lowercase “b”
In many typeface in this case the “b” is basically an “o” with an additional stroke and the needed optical adjustments. In some cases it may be a circle, an oval or a combination of the two. If you know about the different categories of typefaces you may have figured out that the circular “o” is mostly in geometric typefaces while the ovals mostly appear in neo-grotesques like Helvetica or Akzidenz Grotesque.
Optical refinements
There are several optical adjustments that must be noted.
The “o” and the stroke are intersected and the joints are reduced. We must not forget that in many cases we may need to reduce the interior of the letter too and take a bit away from the stem inside the counter.
Summary
The letter “B” is one of the hardest letters to draw. A lot of things need to be taken in consideration and many mistakes can be made — in custom logotypes especially. Here we have reviewed only the basic construction of the letter. If you want to read up on its history I’ve found a good articles here.
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