How To Use the AMES Lettering Guide

Items Needed:

• AMES Lettering Guide

• Ruler or T-square

• Pencil

• Paper

Things To Note:

• The disk turns to allow for various spaced lines, and the numbers allow you to set the line spacing.

• Measurements used for the numbers are millimeters or 1/32 fractions of an inch.

• 1/8: standard spacing for grid design of 1/8” grid lines.

• Leading: the space between the lines of text

• “x-height” or “corpus size”: the distance between the baseline and the mean line of the hand. It gets the name from the size of the ‘x’ character of the font or hand being used.

• “3/5” or “2/3”: Lowercase letters or “x-height”, is stated fraction of the line width.

Metric (millimeters)

• Text line widths between: 2 mm to 10 mm, with a max of 15 mm.

• Leading: 5 mm or 10 mm between the lines.

• x-height: None or half the chosen line width.

Inches (1/32 of an inch)

• Text line widths between: 2/32” to 10/32”

• Leading: Variable

• x-height: Depends on if using the fractions, or the middle line of holes.

AMES Lettering Guide

Invented by O.A. Olson, in 1917 - for more information:

http://alphabettenthletter.blogspot.com/2013/11/creator-oa-olson-ames-lettering-guide.html