You may listen to your graphic designer nodding your head oblivious to what they are talking about when they talk 'shop'. Here are a list of terms and descriptions that may help you in future conversations.
SERIF
A serif is the little stroke or curve at the ends of letters.
SANS SERIF
Sans means “without”, and a sans serif font does not include the extra stroke at the ends of the letters.
SCRIPT
Script typefaces are fonts or type based upon historical or modern handwriting styles.
HIERARCHY
The Hierarchy of a design is the navigation throughout the piece and the sequence in which your eye follows the content.
KERNING
Kerning refers to the space between two specific letters (or other characters: numbers, punctuation, etc.) and the process of adjusting that space improves legibility.
LEADING
Leading refers to the spacing between the lines. Leading is used when content that has multiple lines of readable text and ensures the distance from the bottom of the words above to the top of the words below has appropriate spacing to make them legible.
RGB
RGB is a colour model in which Red, Green, and Blue are added together in various ways to reproduce a broad array of colours. RGB tends to be used for on-screen purposes.
CMYK
CMYK is a colour model that is used in the print process.
CMYK colours are Cyan, Magenta, Yellow and Black (Key)
GRADIENT
A gradient is a gradual change from one colour to another or a colour fading into transparency. There are two common types of gradients: linear and radial.
OPACITY
Opacity is the making of an object transparent. The lower the opacity, the more transparent an element is. For example, 100% opacity means an object is solid.
RESOLUTION
The resolution of an image determines the quality. The higher the resolution, the higher the quality. A high-resolution image will be clear and crisp whereas a low-resolution image will feel a little pixelated and blurry.
SCALE
A graphic element can appear larger or smaller depending on the size, placement, and colour of the elements around it.
PIXEL
A pixel is a minuscule area of a screen. Pixels are the smallest basic unit of programmable colour on a computer and images are made up of many individual pixels.
RASTER
Raster images are made up of a set grid of pixels. This means when you change the size of stretch a raster image it can get a little blurry and lose some clarity.
VECTOR
Vector images are non destructive images that can scale in size without losing any quality. Unlike rasters, vectors won’t get blurry when scaled.
ALIGNMENT
Alignment is the way that the different elements in a design are arranged, usually in relation to a page or document.
BLEED
The bleed is the artwork or background colour that extends in to this area, in case the cut made to the design or sheet isn’t exact.
HIGH RESOLUTION (Hi-Res)
300+ DPI (Dots per Inch) image.
LOW RESOLUTION (Lo-Res)
72 DPI (Dots per inch) image. Used for Web because of low file size.
JPG
A JPG is a commonly used method of lossy compression for digital images, particularly for those images produced by digital photography. The degree of compression can be adjusted, allowing a selectable tradeoff between storage size and image quality.
NO TRANSPARENCY
VARIED RESOLUTION
PRINT, WEB, EMAIL
PNG
Portable Network Graphics is a raster-graphics file format that supports lossless data compression. PNG was developed as an improved, non-patented replacement for Graphics Interchange. Usually for the web 72 DPI . Transparent background
TRANSPARENCY
LOW RESOLUTION
WEB
Portable Document Format, used to display documents in an electronic form independent of the software, hardware or operating system they are viewed on.
TRANSPARENCY
VARIED RESOLUTION
TIF The TIF/TIFF file format is most commonly used for storing images, photography, or art. TIF files are most commonly used in professional environments and commercial printing. The TIF format is the most widely supported format across all platforms. It is the standard format for high quality images.
TRANSPARENCY
HIGH FILE SIZE
GIF GIF files are low resolution files most commonly used for web and email purposes. GIF files can be created with a transparent background.
TRANSPARENCY
LOW RESOLUTION
WEB
ANIMATED GIF An animated GIF is an image encoded in graphics interchange format (GIF), which contains a number of images or frames in a single file to create an animation.
LOW RESOLUTION
WEB
SIZES
A4 Usually used for business stationery, brochures, booklets .
A5 Commonly used for smaller items such as leaflets/flyers etc.
A6 The international postcard size.
A7 Labels etc
A1 33.1 x 23.4 inches - 841 x 594 mm
A2 23.4 x 16.5 inches - 594 x 420 mm
A3 16.5 x 11.7 inches - 420 x 297 mm
A4 11.7 x 8.3 inches - 297 x 210 mm
A5 8.3 x 5.8 inches - 210 x 148 mm
A6 5.8 x 4.1 inches - 148 x 105 mm
A7 4.1 x. 2.9 inches 105 x 74 mm
If you require design why not choose Gareth Wright Design
Based in Tameside, Manchester we cover all aspects of print and social media design.
Visit our website at Gareth Wright Design and social media platforms.
