C presents a good opportunity to talk about two terms that make you sound fancy: terminals and overshoots.

First, here’s how C would look compared to I & H with no overshoots. Because only a tiny spec of C touches the cap-height and baseline, it appears ✨optically smaller✨ than letters that have solid mass at those areas.

Going a bit above or below the guides compensates for the perceived smaller size.

In condensed styles, you need less overshoot, and in wide styles you need more. Why? Because changes in height are more and less obvious, respectively.

Moving on, terminals are the beginnings or endings of strokes. The terminals on C relate significantly to terminals on G, and S.

Across all kinds of styles, terminals on these letters relate in similar ways. How closed or open are they? Is there a serif? Where’s my mommy?

Lowercase c matches the uppercase in sans serif styles, but in serif land, there is usually anomitted bottom serif. Why? No clue. ✌ Update: it relates to handwriting.