What Is a Bowl in Typography?
By Maya Chen, lettering designer and type educator · Checked by Jordan Hale · · How we review content
The bowl is the part of a letter you draw by swinging a curve out from a stem and bringing it back to meet it. Think of the right-hand belly of a b, the left-hand belly of a d, the top of a P, or the two stacked bellies of a B. The word is borrowed from the real object: a rounded container. What it holds is the counter.
Bowls on different letters
| Letter | Bowl position | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| b | Right of the stem, at the baseline | Bowl joins the stem low and sweeps out |
| d | Left of the stem | Mirror of b |
| p, q | Right or left, hanging from the x-height | Stem continues into the descender |
| P, R | Top half only | R adds a leg below the bowl |
| B | Two bowls, upper smaller than lower | The lower bowl is usually wider for balance |
| g | Upper bowl in double-story form | The lower part is a loop |
| a | Lower bowl in double-story form | Single-story a is essentially a full bowl and stem |
Different typefaces treat the junction between bowl and stem very differently. In geometric faces such as Futura, the bowl is nearly a perfect circle that touches the stem tangentially. In traditional text faces, the bowl tapers as it meets the stem and has a thin hairline at the join, which gives the letter a calligraphic modulation.
Optical effects
A round shape needs more room than a straight one. If a bowl stopped exactly at the baseline it would look as though it sank into it, so type designers overshoot: the curve dips a little below the baseline and rises above the x-height. The overshoot is small and you can only see it clearly when you compare a round letter with a flat one. When you hand-letter, you should do the same: let the bottom of a b or o dip just under the line you drew for the flat feet of l and i. If you keep every letter strictly on the line, the round letters look short.
Bowls also affect spacing. Two bowls next to each other, as in oo, are happier close together than a bowl next to a stem, because the round sides leave pockets of white above and below. This is the reason hand letterers kern by area, not by the distance between edges.
Bowls in lettering styles
- Bubble letters inflate every bowl until the counters nearly vanish. The skill is keeping bowls the same size from letter to letter; see our bubble letter generator for how the style looks in Unicode.
- Brush lettering puts the thick downstroke on the stem, and the bowl is made by a thin upstroke curling into a thick downstroke on the left-hand side of letters like a, d and g.
- Blackletter breaks bowls into straight facets, so a b looks like two angular strokes joined at corners. The old English text generator shows this clearly.
Common confusions
- Bowl and counter are different. The bowl is ink; the counter is the white inside.
- A bowl is not a ball terminal. The ball at the end of an a or r in some serif faces is a terminal, not a bowl.
- A bowl is not an arch. The curve of an n or h branches off a stem and is called an arch or shoulder.
If you are drawing letters yourself, practice bowls as isolated ovals first: rows of leaning and upright o shapes, then add stems to turn them into b, d, p and q. Doing so trains your hand to land a curve cleanly on a stem, which is the commonest weak point in beginners’ lettering.
Frequently asked questions
Which letters have bowls?
What is the difference between a bowl and a loop?
Why do bowls often overshoot the baseline?
Related terms
- What Is a Counter in Typography?A counter is the empty space enclosed or partly enclosed by a letter's strokes, such as the hole in o, the eye of e or the opening under the arch of n. Counters shape how dark, open and readable a letter looks.
- What Is a Serif?A serif is the small finishing stroke added at the end of the main strokes of a letter. A serif typeface is one whose letters have these terminals, such as Times New Roman or Garamond; one without them is sans-serif.
- What Is an Ascender?An ascender is the part of a lowercase letter that extends above the x-height, as in b, d, f, h, k and l. The ascender line, the height these strokes reach, is a key guideline in handwriting and lettering.
- What Is a Descender?A descender is the part of a letter that extends below the baseline, as in g, j, p, q and y. The depth these strokes reach, the descender line, limits how tightly lines of text can be stacked.
- Typography & Lettering GlossaryThe Typography & Lettering Glossary defines twenty terms that type designers and letterers use every day, from kerning and x-height to serif, ligature and blackletter. Each entry gives a precise definition, then shows what the idea means for hand lettering and for the styled Unicode text our generators produce.
- What Is an Ampersand? Origin of the & SymbolThe ampersand is the symbol & meaning "and". It began as a handwritten ligature of the Latin word et, its name comes from the old schoolroom phrase "and per se and", and many typefaces draw it in strikingly elaborate ways.