An imaginary line drawn from top to bottom of a glyph bisecting the upper and lower strokes is the axis.
Definition: An imaginary line drawn from top to bottom of a glyph bisecting the upper and lower strokes is the axis. For typefaces that exhibit changes in the thickness of curved strokes, the inclination of the axis of the lowercase o is used to measure the angle of stress. A completely vertical axis indicates a design with an angle of 0 or vertical stress. When the axis leans to the left or right the design has angled (positive or negative) stress. Early styles of typefaces generally shared similiar axis or stress angles.
The axis or design axis is also an adjustable attribute of some fonts, such as Multiple Master fonts. Adjusting the design axis results in variations in the weight, width, size, and other features of the typeface.
Also Known As: stress, angle of stress, design axis