Terminology
Alignment: This refers to the lining up of text or graphics either along their top, bottom, centre, or sides in a consistent and visually appealing way. Proper alignment creates a sense of order and professionalism in the design.
Color Palette: This is a specific range of colours chosen for a design project. The palette often reflects the mood, brand, or message of the design and helps to create visual coherence throughout a piece.
Contrast: The difference in luminance or colour that makes objects in a design distinguishable. High contrast can draw attention to specific elements, while low contrast softens the overall look.
CMYK: Stands for Cyan, Magenta, Yellow, and Key (black). It’s a colour model primarily used in colour printing. The colours are combined in various proportions to produce a wide spectrum of colours.
DPI (Dots Per Inch): This measures the resolution of a printed image. Higher DPI values indicate more detailed and clearer images.
Font: This is a particular size, weight, and style of a typeface. Each font gives a different feel and style to the text, influencing the design’s overall tone.
Grid: A structural layout of intersecting horizontal and vertical lines or guides used to organize and align elements in a design. Grids help in creating a cohesive layout.
Hierarchy: The visual arrangement of design elements in a way that signifies importance. This guides the viewer’s eye to the most critical information first.
JPEG (Joint Photographic Experts Group): A popular image format known for its ability to compress digital images while maintaining reasonable quality.
Kerning: The adjustment of space between pairs of letters to improve visual appeal and readability.
Layout: The arrangement of text, images, and other elements on a page or screen. A good layout guides the viewer through the content in a fluid, intuitive way.
Opacity: Refers to the transparency level of an element in a design. Lower opacity makes the element more transparent, while higher opacity makes it more opaque.
Pixel: The smallest unit in a digital image or graphic. Pixels are tiny dots that come together to form the complete image.
Resolution: This is the amount of detail an image holds. Higher resolution means more image detail. It’s particularly important to ensure that printed images are clear and not pixelated.
RGB (Red, Green, Blue): A colour model used for digital devices like monitors and cameras. Colours are created by combining these three colours in varying intensities.
Sans Serif: A typeface without small lines or strokes at the ends of characters. Sans serif fonts are often used for their clean, modern appearance.
Serif: A typeface with small lines or strokes at the ends of characters. Serif fonts are traditional and are often used for large bodies of text due to their readability.
Vector Graphic: A type of graphic that uses mathematical algorithms to create shapes. Vector graphics are scalable without loss of resolution, making them ideal for logos and other designs that need to be resized.
White Space (Negative Space): The unmarked or empty space around and between elements in a design. White space can be used strategically to create balance and focus in a design.
Typography: The art and technique of arranging type to make the content legible and visually appealing. It involves selecting typefaces, point sizes, line lengths, line-spacing, and letter spacing.
Brand Identity: The visual elements of a brand, such as colour, design, and logo, that identify and distinguish the brand in consumers’ minds.
Bleed: The area of a printed design that extends past the edge of where the sheet will be cut. This prevents unprinted edges when the document is trimmed.
Raster Graphic: An image made up of a grid of pixels. Unlike vector graphics, raster images lose quality when scaled up.
Mockup: A full-size model of a design or device, used for product presentations or other purposes. It’s a way to show how the design will look in real-life scenarios.
Pantone: A proprietary colour space used in a variety of industries, primarily printing, known for its standardized colour reproduction system.
Aspect Ratio: The proportional relationship between the width and height of an image or screen.
Infographic: A visual representation of information or data, e.g., as a chart or diagram. Used to make complex information more understandable at a glance.
Mood Board: A collage of images, text, and samples of objects in a composition. It helps in defining the overall style or mood of a project.
Saturation: The intensity of a colour, expressed as the degree to which it differs from white.