Search by 'design' tag

• What is an aberration?

  Aberration refers to a distortion of quality or color rending in a photographic or digital image.

• What is a Fill Light?

  Fill light is the source of light that is secondary to the main light used in a composition.

• What is a Font Family?

  A font family is a font set with similar qualities in design.

• What is a Foot in a letter?

  The foot is the part of the stem that rests on the baseline.

• What is a Mascot?

  A mascot is a pictorial logo consisting of a character or spokesperson to represent a brand, such as an animal or person.

• What is the Tail in a letter?

  The tail is the descending stroke in a letter. A tail is usually decorative. Examples include the letter 'q'.

• What is a Bowl?

  The bowl is the curved line in a letter that closes the rounded portions.

• What is a Counter?

  The counter is the fully or partially enclosed space in a letter created by a curved line, or bowl.

• What is 4K UHD?

  Similar to 4K DCI, 4K UHD refers to images or digital screens with resolutions equal to 3840x2160. 4K UHD is equal to a 16:9 aspect ratio.

• What is Barrel Distortion?

  Barrel distortion refers to optical distortions due to digital images bowing out of square.

• What is an Artifact?

  An artifact is any distortion in a digital image created as a result of interpolation or image compression.

• What is Styling?

  Styling is a design guide indicating styling and formatting standards to ensure uniform representation of a brand.

• What is a Soft Proof?

  A soft proof is a digital sample of a print piece viewable on a computer screen.

• What is a Stroke?

  A stroke is any straight or curved line that makes up a letter.

• What is Lowercase?

  Lowercase is the small letters of a typeface.

• What is 2K?

  2K is a term that refers to a horizontal resolution of 2,000 pixels in images and screens.

• What are Small Caps?

  Small caps are capital letters that are the same height as the lowercase, or x-height, of that typeface.

• What is Interlaced Scan?

  Interlaced scan, or video, is a commonly used term to describe video capture techniques where two fields of data are captured a frame apart and then played back in a manner that reproduces motion without flicker.

• What is the Rule of Thirds?

  The Rule of Thirds is a theory that divides an image into a 3x3 grid. The subject must align with the focal point where the guidelines intersect.

• What is a Baseline?

  A baseline is the horizontal line where all letter sit, marking the lowest point of uppercase letters and most lowercase letters except descenders.

• What is Script?

  Script is a typeface similar to handwritten cursive.

• What is the Ascender?

  The ascender is the portion of a lowercase letter that extends above the x-height, such as letters 'b', 'd,' and 'h.'

• What is an Orphan?

  An orphan is a word or short line that appears alone at the end of a paragraph or the beginning of a column or page.

• What is the Terminal of a letter?

  The terminal is a curved line that ends a letter without decorative feet or a serif.

• What is Bleed?

  Bleed is a method of extending a design past the finished page margins in order to be trimmed when printed. Making the image bleed ensures the final printed piece does not contain white lines on the edges.

• What is Font Weight?

  Font weight is the heaviness of a stroke of a font. Some common font weights include light, semibold and bold.

• What is X-Height?

  X-height is the maximum height of lowercase letters, or the distance from the baseline to midline. The x-height is typically measured by the height of the letter 'x' in each typeface.

• What is Trim?

  Trim is the finished size of a printed piece after it has been trimmed.

• What is a Widow?

  A widow is the last word or shot line of a paragraph appearing separately on the following column or page, or beginning a new paragraph at the bottom of a column or page.

• What is Negative Space?

  Negative space, also known as 'white space', is a design technique that leaves blank spaces or areas not containing any text of images.

• What is Die Cut?

  Die cut is the process of cutting a specific shape or pattern into a printed design using a sharp die.

• What is Copy?

  Body copy is the editorial text in a digital design, print publication or other medium.

• What is a Midline?

  Midline, also known as the 'mean line' or 'median' in typography, refers to the line at the top of lowercase letters where non-ascending letters stop.

• What is Tracking?

  Tracking, also known as 'letter-spacing', is the even spacing of all characters in a word or sentence.

• What is Foil Stamping?

  Foil stamping is a heat-pressing technique that applies a foil image to a printed design.

• What is Cap Height?

  Cap height is the distance from the baseline to the top height of uppercase or capital letters.

• What is text Alignment?

  Alignment is the arranging of the position of all design elements to the same line. Common alignments includes left, right, centered or justified.

• What is Hex?

  Hex is a color code used in HTML, CSS and design software. Colors are defined by a pound sign (#) followed by six-digit combination of letters and numbers.

• What is Pantone?

  Pantone or 'Pantone Matching System' is a proprietary color system of colors used to match colors in print design.

• What is Tint?

  Tint is a variety of a color created by adding white to a hue. This creates lighter colors, such as pastels.

• What is Grayscale?

  Grayscale is a monochromatic range of gray shades.

• What is a Complementary Color?

  A complementary color scheme is based on two opposite colors on the color wheel.

• What is Slab Serif?

  Slab serif is a serif typeface with thick, square-shaped strokes. Slab serif is typically used in headlines and titles.

• What is Lorem Ipsum?

  Lorem Ipsum, also known as 'dummy copy', is text that resembles Latin and is used as a temporary placeholder in design to be replaced with real content.

• What is Monochrome?

  Monochrome is a color scheme based on one color or different shades of a single color.

• What is an Analogous Color?

  Analogous color schemes are based on three colors adjacent to each other on the color wheel.

• What is Saturation?

  Saturation is the brightness or intensity of a hue in an image or design. The more saturated, the more pure and vivid the color appears.

• What is a Stem?

  A stem is the main straight, vertical stroke in a letter. Examples include the letters 'B' and 'V'.

• What is a Pull Quote?

  A pull quote is a short phrase or excerpt from the body text that is emphasized or visually highlighted to add interest.

• What is Triadic?

  A triadic color scheme is based on three colors evenly spaced apart on the color wheel. The dominant color and two accent colors create a triangle on the color wheel.

• What is Chroma?

  Chroma is the purity or brightness of a color with no black, white or gray added.

• What is Bokeh?

  Bokeh is a blur or haze created when lights are out of focus.

• What is Opacity?

  Opacity is the degree of transparency of a design element. Lower opacities achieve more transparency whereas 100 percent opacity achieves a solid text or image.

• What does it mean when an image is Blown Out?

  Images are blown out when a photo is overexposed to light and appears too bright or white.

• What is the Descender?

  The descender is the portion of a lowercase letter that extends below the baseline, such as letters 'g,' 'j,' and 'p.'

• What is Shade?

  Shade is a variety of a color created by adding black to a hue. This creates deeper, dark colors.

• What is a Gradient?

  A gradient is a gradual transition or fade from one color to another. Common gradient techniques are radial, when one color is positioned in the center, or linear, when colors are on opposite ends.

• What are Highlights?

  Highlights are the lightest parts of a photo.

• What is Tone?

  Tone is a variety of a color created by adding black and white, or gray, to a hue. This creates a duller, less intense version of a pure color.

• What is a Palette?

  A palette is the range of colors chosen for an illustration or design. Colors are typically harmonious with one another for an aesthetically pleasing look.

• What is Exposure?

  Exposure is the amount of light on photo subjects. Overexposed means there's too much light whereas underexposed means there's not enough light.

• What is Stock Photography?

  Stock photography is licensed art and images taken and provided by professional photographers.

• What does it mean to Flatten an image?

  Flatten means merging all visible layers into one to reduce the file size.

• What are Levels?

  Levels are the highlights, shadows and mid-tones in a photo.

• What is Offset Printing?

  Offset printing is a printing method that transfers an inked image from a plate to a rubber surface then rolled onto paper. Offset is the most common printing method for high volumes.

• What are Mid-Tones?

  Mid-tones are the areas between the lightest part, or highlights, and darkest part, or shadows of a photo.

• What is a Flat image?

  A flat image refers to a style of design where a digital image representing a real-life object does not contain any three-dimensional visual effect. Flat design typically makes use of simple shapes with sharp edges.

• What is Digital Printing?

  Digital printing is a printing method that uses toner or liquid ink. Digital printing is typically used for lower quantities and variable printing.

• What is Unsharpening an image?

  Unsharp is a tool to sharpen an image by creating a blurry, or unsharp copy and subtracting it from the original.

• What is Skeumorphism?

  Skeumorphism is a style of design where a digital image imitates the look and function or a real life object.

• What is a Mock-Up?

  A mock-up refers to a recreation of an original model to be used for testing a design and/or functionality.

• What is LCD?

  LCD refers to the technology used in displays and stands for 'liquid crystal display'.

• What is Resize and Resample?

  Resize means to change an image size by duplicating pixels. Resizing may pixilate images and look blurry.
  Resample means to change an image size by filling in more pixels.

• What are Shadows?

  Shadows are the darkest parts of a photo.

• What is CSS?

  CSS stands for 'Cascading Style Sheets', CSS is a style sheet language use dot visually style elements of a web page.

• What is a Thumbnail?

  A thumbnail is typically a small, rough hand-drawn sketches of possible design concepts. Thumbnails serve as visual aids to help the development of full design concepts.

• What is Letterpressing?

  Letterpressing, also called 'block printing', a printing technique that creates an impression by pressing a metal type into paper.

• What is Knolling?

  Knolling, also known as 'flat lay photography', is a photography technique when objects are arranged at a 90-degree angle within a square or rectangular frame and shot overhead.

• What is a Brand/Branding?

  Brand/Branding is a concept consisting of a company's values, messaging, visual identity, and other characteristics to represent and promote a product or service.

• What is an Icon?

  An icon is an image, mark or symbol that visually represents an action, object brand or other similar item.

• What is a Symbol?

  A symbol is a pictorial logo consisting of a non-abstract shape or mark to represent a brand.

• What is a Lossy file format?

  Lossy file formats delete details to compress data and reduce file size. A JPEG file is an example of a lossy file format.

• What is an Abstract Mark?

  An abstract mark is a pictorial logo consisting of an abstract shape or symbol to represent a brand.

• What is an Emblem?

  An emblem is a design that represents a group or concept; in business, it typically encloses a brand name or logo. Examples of emblems include badges and seals.

• What is a Brandmark or Trademark?

  Also known as a logomark, a brandmarktrademark

• What does Lossless mean?

  Lossless is a file format that restores image details from compressed data. A PNG file is an example of a lossless file format.

• What is Raster?

  Raster refers to a digital image composed of pixels on a grid. Changing the size of a rasterized image will greatly affect its quality.

• What is a BMP?

  A BMP, also known as a device independent bitmap (DIB), is a bitmap image file that is an uncompressed raster file format made up of pixel grids and used to store bitmap image files.

• What is a PSD?

  PSD stands for 'Photoshop document', this refers to a file format and extension for working raster image files created in Adobe Photoshop.

• What is a PNG?

  PNG stands for 'portable network graphics', this web-based file format uses lossless comprehension. A PNG file is ideal for images with transparent backgrounds.

• What is a TIFF?

  TIFF stands for 'tagged image file format', this refers to a graphic and page layout file format typically used for high color depth images.

• What is a ZIP?

  ZIP stands for 'zone information protocol', this is a file format that compresses and combines several files into a single, smaller file without losing data when it is decompressed.

• What is the Spine?

  The spine refers to only the letter 's'. It is the main curved stroke of a letter that can be either horizontal or vertical.

• What is a Digital Negative?

  A digital negative is a raw image format used for digital photography.

• What is a Pixel?

  A pixel is the smallest programmable square-shaped dot on a digital screen. The more pixels an image contains, the higher the resolution.

• What is a Logotype?

  A logotype, also known as a 'wordmark', refers to the visual representation of a brand using its name as the design.

• What is a Kilobyte?

  A kilobyte (kb) is 1,024 bytes and is used to describe the size of a digital image or file.

• What is a JPG?

  JPG stands for 'joint photographic electronic group', this refers to a raster file format that uses lossless comprehension.

• What is Sans Serif Typeface?

  Sans serif typeface is a typeface without serifs, or decorative lines, on the ends of letters.

• What is a Lettermark?

  A lettermark, also known as a 'monogram logo', is a stylized design containing the abbreviation or acronym of a brand name.

• What is a PDF?

  PDF stands for 'portable document format', this file format can be universally downloaded to present and share documents.

• What is a Wordmark?

  A wordmark, also known as a 'monogram logo', a stylized design containing the abbreviation or acronym of a brand name.

• What is DPI?

  DPI stands for 'dots per inch', this is the unit of measure of the resolution of a printed piece. Since a higher DPI produces a greater quality, the recommended resolution for high-quality output is 300 dpi.

• What is Uppercase?

  Uppercase is the larger, capital letters of a typeface.

• What is Point Size?

  Point size is a unit of measure for the size of text. There are about 72 points in one inch.

• What is Serif Typeface?

  Serif typeface is a typeface with decorative feet, or lines, on the ends of letters.

• What is PPI?

  PPI stands for 'pixels per inch', this is the unit of measure of the resolution of a digital image.

• What is Feathering?

  Feathering is a visual effect that softens or smooths edges of a design element.

• What is a Vector image?

  A vector image is an image composed of points, lines and shapes using mathematical equations. Scaling a vector image does not compromise its clarity or quality.

• What is a GIF?

  GIF stands for 'graphics interchange format', this refers to a raster file format that supports animation and transparency, and displays up to 256 colors.

• What is Italics?

  Italics is a font style that angles characters slightly to the right.

• What is Leading?

  Leading, pronounced 'ledding', refers to the vertical space between lines of text. Adjusting the distance between baselines for legibility is also known as line-height or line spacing.

• What is an Aspect Ratio?

  Aspect ratio refers to the proportional relationship between the width and height of a frame reduced to the smallest ratio. The aspect ratio is written as the width then height and separated by a colon (width:height).

• What is Noise?

  Noise is spots or specks on a photo that appear dirty or dusty. Removing the dots is called noise reduction.

• What is Scale?

  Scale is the size of a design element as related to another. Design elements can be proportionally increased or decreased in size.

• What is 4K DCI?

  4K DCI is similar to 4K UHD, however 4K DCI refers to an image or digital screen with a resolution of 4096x2160 pixels. 4K DCI refers to an aspect ratio of 1.9:1.

• What is 720p?

  720p, often referred to as "HD Ready" refers to digital screens and images with an aspect ratio of 16:9 and with 720 horizontal progressive lines.

• What is 1080p?

  Similar to 720p, 1080p refers to images or digital screens with an aspect ratio of 16:9 that have 1080 horizontal lines that are non-interlaced (I.e. progressive).

• What is Blur?

  Blur is a design technique that adds an overlay on an image to make it appear unclear.

• What does it mean to Crop an image?

  Crop is the process of removing unwanted portions of an image either digitally or manually.

• What are Layers?

  Layers are a transparent overlay stacked to create images and effects.

• What is the Golden Ratio?

  The Golden Ratio, also known as the 'Golden Mean', is a mathematical ratio approximately equal to 1:1.61 used to create aesthetically pleasing compositions. The well-known Golden Rectangle consists of a large rectangle split into a perfect square and a small rectangle with the same aspect ratio as the large rectangle.

• What is 1080i?

  Images and digital screens with 1080 horizontal lines and whose lines are interlaced (not progressive) are considered to be 1080i.

• What is ACR?

  ACR refers to Adobe's Camera Raw format for images and is a tool used for enhancing and editing raw images.

• What is a Drop Shadow?

  A drop shadow is a visual effect that creates the appearance of a shadow behind an image. A drop shadow creates a 3D illusion that the image is raised.

• What are Margins?

  Margins are blank spaces around the edges of a page, usually surrounding body copy. Adjusting the margin can change the overall appearance of a design.

• What is Texture?

  Texture is a style of design where the surface of an element appears to have a tactile characteristic.

• What is a Grid?

  A Grid is a system that is evenly divided, intersecting vertical and horizontal axis used to align text and images.

• What is Contrast?

  Contrast is a pronounced difference between colors, shape, size, typeface, texture or other design element, such as dark versus light or thick vs thin. In typography, contrast refers to variety of stroke thicknesses.

• What is White Space?

  White space, also referred to as 'Negative Space', is a design technique that leaves blank spaces or areas not containing any text or images.

• What is a Watermark?

  A watermark is a translucent marker placed over a printed photo, or digital image or design. A watermark identifies the copyright owner.

• What are Crop Marks?

  Also known as trim marks, crop marks lines indicate where the paper will be trimmed to its finished size. It is recommended to add bleed to avoid white lines on the edges of a printed piece.

• What is Hue?

  Hue is any pure color on the color wheel, such as red, blue or green.

• What is CMYK?

  CMYK stands for the primary colors of cyan, magenta, yellow and key (or black), this is the four-color model typically used for printing, achieved by mixing the colors together.

• What is RGB?

  RGB stands for the primary colors of red, blue and green, these are the colors displayed on a digital screen.

• What is Resolution?

  Resolution refers to the measure of the quality in detail and sharpness of an image. The higher the resolution, the more clear an image looks.

• What is Compression?

  Compression refers to the reducing of the file size, or bytes, of an image. The most common compressed image formats are JPEG and GIF. Images with smaller file sizes help web pages load faster.

• What is Kerning?

  Kerning is the horizontal space between individual characters or letter. Adjusting the distance creates more pleasing and proportional balance.

• What is Blur?

  Blur is a tool to soften or smooth parts of a photo.

• What is Sharpen?

  Sharpen is increasing image clarity by highlighting the edges and fine details of an image.

• What is a Safe Zone?

  A safe zone is an area inside the trim that is safe from being trimmed or cut off. All important assets, including text and graphics, should be placed within the safe zone.

• What is a Color Wheel?

  A Color Wheel is a circle showing the relationship between 12 primary, secondary and tertiary colors.

• What is Ambient Light?

  Ambient light is any light that is immediately available and is naturally occurring in a scene. Ambient light is light without modifiers like flash bulbs.

• What is a Bit?

  A bit is a binary digit that is considered to be the absolute smallest unit available when referring to a digital file. 8-bits is equal to one byte.

• What is Color Calibration?

  Color calibration is the process where image source, monitor and printer can be calibrated to use the same color standard. Examples of color calibration standards are Adobe RGB and sRGB.

• What is Color Depth?

  Color depth refers to the number of colors that are represented by hardware such as a monitor or camera and software such as bit-depth of a computer user's desktop.

• What is Aliasing?

  Aliasing refers to the process of minimizing or removing completely jagged/sharp edges in a digital photograph, making affected areas appear smooth and natural.

• What is Digital Zoom?

  Digital zoom, unlike optical zoom, is a zoom that relies on software that crops a portion of a digital image and achieves a zoom. Digital zooms use no mechanical or moving parts in order to achieve.

• What is Dynamic Range?

  Dynamic range is the range of brightness and tonality reproduced within a digital image. The wider a dynamic range the greater the tonal values between dark shadows and highlights.

• What are Effective Pixels?

  Effective pixels is the result of the measurement of number of pixels that have actively recorded a digital image on a sensor.

• What is EXIF?

  EXIF, or Exchangeable Image File, is the commonly used header format for storing metadata, or data such as resolution, length, location, time and date, on a digital image file.

• What is Color Temperature?

  Color temperature is a linear scale that measures color of ambient lighting with warm light measured in low numbers and cool light measured in higher numbers.

• What is Depth of Field?

  Depth of field, or DOF, is the measure of the available light in a background and foreground area and sits in front of and behind the main subjects in an image.

• What is Focus?

  Focus means the process of a camera focusing on an object, either close by or far away. Focus refers to that part of a digital image that is sharp.

• What is a Histogram?

  A histogram is a visual representation of the exposure values of a digital image and are typically referenced using a graph.

• What is an ICC Profile?

  ICC Profile is a universally recognized management standard for specifying the color attributes of digital images like cameras, monitors and printers.

• What are Jaggies?

  Jaggies is a common term to describe the 'stair-step' appearance of angled lines in a digital image.

• What is a Megabyte?

  A megabyte (mb) is 1,024 kilobytes and is used to describe the size of a digital image or file. A typical digital image file size is usually measured in megabytes.

• What is a Megapixel?

  A megapixel represents 1,000,000 pixels and is the unit of measure used in describing the sensor's size of a digital camera.

• What is Memory?

  Memory, or RAM, is a form of storage in digital cameras and is typically measured in megabytes or gigabytes.

• What is Moiré?

  Moiré is patterns that form in a digital photo and are a result of a digital camera's inability to distinguish between a pattern within the photographed scene.

• What is Noise Reduction?

  Noise reduction involves the removal of artifacts in a digital image usually by increasing the available light in a scene.

• What is OLED?

  OLED stands for organic light emitting diode and is a type of LED that does not require any back lighting.

• What is Non-lossy?

  Non-lossy, or lossless, refers to a data compression technique that does not remove detail in a digital image. RAW is a non-lossy data type.

• What is Non-Volatile Memory?

  Non-volatile memory is memory, like in a Compact Flash, SD or xD card, that contains information, usually digital images, which is not lost when power is removed.

• What is Pincushion Distortion?

  An optical illusion, pincushion distortion refers to parallel lines in a digital image that appear to bow inwards.

• What is a PC Card?

  PC cards are devices that provide an easy way to transfer digital movies and photos from a digital camera to a computer or laptop.

• What is RAW format?

  Raw files are digital image files that contain all of the data captured at the time the digital image was created.

• What is Red-Eye Reduction?

  Red-eye reduction is an automated process of reducing or getting rid of red-eye caused by a camera's flash and low light conditions.

• What is Overexposure?

  Overexposure is the result of an image capturing too much light and appearing washed out and details.

• What is Parallax?

  Parallax is defined as the difference between a digital image, as seen by a camera's point of view, and the image recorded by its imaging sensor.

• What is Pixelization?

  Pixelization occurs when a digital image is enlarged and the pixels of that image no longer appear to blend to form a smooth image.

• What is Red-Eye?

  Red-eye is the term used when a camera picks up the blood vessels in the pupil of a subject's eyes as a picture is being taken and usually occurs in low light environments.

• What is an SD Card?

  SD card, or secure digital cards, are removable memory devices that store digital images and files and is typically found in digital cameras.

• What is a Storage Card?

  A storage card is any device that can be used to capture and store a digital image or movie. xD and compact flash drives are examples of storage cards.

• What is Tonal Range?

  Tonal range is a term used to define an image's quality of color from shadow detail to bright highlights.

• What is White Balance?

  White balance is a digital camera's ability to correct the color and tint in variable lighting conditions.

• What is Underexposure?

  Underexposure occurs when too little light exists to take an adequate picture using a digital camera and results in dark, detail less pictures.

• What are xD Cards?

  xD cards are small memory devices that are typically found in digital cameras and are used to capture and record digital images.

• What is TWAIN?

  TWAIN applies to scanners and is a standard scanners and digital cameras use for communicating.