Design terminology
Just like any profession, designers are prone to using jargon. So we’ve creating this section to help our clients understand when we say “that’s an unsightly bowl”.
Typographic symbols
- Accent characters
- Common punctuation symbols
- Common typography symbols
- Currency symbols
- Intellectual property symbols
- Mathematical symbols
- Ligature characters (co-joined characters)
- Greek characters
Copywriting terminology
- Block quote
- Benefits
- Body copy
- Brand
- Brief
- Call out
- Call to action
- Citation
- Copyfitting
- Copy
- Copywriting
- Cross reference
- Deliverable
- Direct marketing
- Direct mail
- Dummy text
- Footer
- Full caps
- Gutter
- Hard copy
- Heading
- Headnote
- Index
- Legend
- Lowercase
- Mark up
- Numbered list
- Orphan
- Proof
- Proofread
- Reversed copy
- Rough
- Rule
- Sentence case
- Serial comma
- Sidebar
- Specs
- Stet
- Subhead
- Table of contents
- Tag line
- Target audience
- Teaser
- Title case
- Typo
- Unordered list
- Uppercase
- Unique selling proposition (USP)
- Widow
Design terminology
- Alias
- Alignment
- Antialias
- Author’s alterations
- Gradient
- Mock-up
- Style sheet
- Vector
- White space
File formats
- Animated GIF
- GIF
- Flash
- JPG or JPEG
- PNG
Websites
- Alt tag
- Browser
- CSS
- Drop-down menu
- E-zine
- Flash
- Form
- HTML
- Hyperlink
- Hypertext
- Link building
- Keywords
- Off page optimisation
- On page optimisation
- Opt-in
- Metatags
- Mouseover
- Radio button
- Search engine
- Search engine optimisation (SEO)
- Sitemap
- Spider or robot
- Thread
- URL
Paper terminology
- Archival paper
- Cast-coated paper
- Coated paper
- Grain
- GSM
- Laser compatible or laser guaranteed
- Matte coated paper
- Recycled paper
- Uncoated paper
- Watermark
Printing terminology
- Accordion folding
- Against the grain
- Backing-up
- Binding (perfect, saddle stitching, burst binding)
- Bleed
- Blind embossing
- Choke
- CMYK
- Collate
- Colour bar
- Colour separations
- Comb binding
- Composite
- Cover stock
- Crop (image)
- Crop (paper)
- Crop marks
- Diecut
- Digital printing
- Dots per inch (DPI)
- Emboss
- Finished size
- Finishing
- Foil
- Four colour process
- French folding
- Full colour
- Gate fold
- Gloss finish
- Grain
- Hickey
- Imposition
- Laminate
- Leading
- Lines per inch
- Matte finish
- Opacity
- Overs
- Page count
- Proof
- Perfect binding
- PMS colour
- Process colour
- Register
- Saddle stitch
- Score
- Screen printing
- Self-cover
- Show-through
- Spine
- Spot colour
- Spread (facing pages)
- Spread (ink spread)
- Stock
- Trapping
- Trim size
- UV coating
- Varnish
Font terminology
- Angle arc
- Apex
- Ascender
- Bar
- Beak terminal
- Crashing
- Descender
- Font styles
- Flag terminal
- Hairline
- Juncture
- Leading
- Long S
- Majuscule, uppercase or capital letters
- Minuscule, lowercase or small letters
- Tie
- Tittle
- Open counter
- Orphan
- Outstroke
- Overshoot
- Subscript
- Superscript
- Swung dash
- Tail
- Type design or typeface design
- Typefaces
- Typographer
- Typography
- Volume integral
- Web fonts
Font types
- Calligraphy fonts
- Script fonts
- Cursive fonts
- Serif fonts
- Venetian serif (sloping e-bar)
- Old Style serif (angled stress, oblique serif)
- Transitional serif (vertical stress, straight serif)
- Modern serif (abrupt contrast, straight serif)
- Slab serif
- Wedge serif
- Sans serif
- Decorative fonts
File formats
- CMYK
- JPG or JPEG
- PNG
- RGB
- TIFF