alignment
The positioning of a body of text: left, right, or center of a page. On a website, designers use Cascading Style Sheets for consistent text and object alignment.
bandwidth
Bandwidth is the amount of information your connection to the internet can carry. On average, typical telephone lines can carry 1K of information per second.
Bitmap/Raster
A raster or bitmap image is made up of pixels. It’s quality and usable size are defined by the number of pixels per square inch (PPI) or dots per square inch (DPI). If you were to look at these images under a magnifying glass, you’d see very small colored “dots”, or pixels. In contrast to a vector image, bitmap images will lose quality if they are enlarged and gain quality if they are reduced in size. Digital photographs are bitmap images.
bleed or bleeding edge
When a page or a cover design extends to and off the edge of the paper it is called a “bleed”. In print design, the artwork or block of color must extend off the edge of the page. The artwork or block of color is printed on larger-size paper and then the printed page is trimmed to the desired size. (add an illustration)
body or copy
The body of a layout (also called copy or body copy) is the main text. Copy is often used to refer to any text that is part of the document layout.
CMYK
Stands for the colors Cyan-Magenta-Yellow-Black. In print design, colors are defined as a percentage of each of these 4 colors and refer to the color of ink that is used when printing the document . For example, the CMYK abbreviation for black would be 0-0-0-100. In contrast, display devices (i.e. computer monitors) typically define colors using RGB.
compression
A method of packing data in order to save disk storage space or download time. Compression is a technique to make a file or a data stream smaller for faster transmission or to take up less storage space. JPEGs are generally compressed graphics files.
copy
See definition for body.
CSS
Abbreviation for Cascading Style Sheet, a feature of HTML developed by the W3C. With Cascading Style sheets, both web designers and end users can create style templates (sheets) that specifies how different text elements (paragraphs, headings, hyperlinks, etc.) appear on a web page. Currently, not all browsers express CSS formatting in the same manner, which can sometimes limit the styling that can be safely applied to a website.
DNS
Stands for Domain Name System. The DNS translates URL text addresses (such as lamppostdesign.com) into a numeric internet address (such as 201.214.12.6).
DPI
Stands for dots per inch. DPI specifies the resolution of an output device, such as a printer or printing press machine. Resolution for printed design material should be a minimum of 300 DPI.
drop shadow
A drop shadow gives an image depth by creating a shading offset behind a selected image.
eps
EPS stands for Encapsulated PostScript . A common file format for exporting vector graphic (Illustrator) files, it contains a preview of the image as well as instructions written in the PostScript language that indicate how the object is to be printed.
export
A term that refers to saving a file in specific format. This is sometimes a format for another program instead of the native program. For example, many Adobe Photoshop® files are exported as GIF or JPEG files. Adobe InDesign® files are often exported to PDF files for ease of printing.
font
A font is a complete collection of characters in a give style of type, including the numbers, symbols, accented characters, punctuation marks, etc. A font also includes the type in various weights, such as bold or italic. For example, Times NewRoman Bold Italic is one font, and Times NewRoman Bold is another font. Times NewRoman is a single typeface.
forms
HTML tags that define and label text-entry boxes, check boxes, radio buttons, and/or drop-down menus to create simple on-screen forms for collecting information from the viewer.
FTP
Stands for File Transfer Protocol. FTP allows you to copy or send files (documents, graphic images, spreadsheets) from one computer to another via the internet. An FTP server is the server to which files may be transferred using FTP on one computer and then downloaded using another. Often used as a method of transferring large files to printing companies or the like.
Illustrator
Adobe Illustrator® is a vector program used by designers to create logos, design illustrations or manipulate type.
InDesign
Adobe InDesign® is a page layout program used by designers to combine text and images.
JPEG / JPG
File format for color or black-and-white images. The name is an abbreviation for Joint Photographic Experts Group, the committee that created this file type. JPEGs are made up of many pixels (the opposite of a vector file) and, unlike GIF and PNG image files, they do not support transparency. This file format allows for more compression than PSD or TIF images, while still retaining a large amount of colors within the image.
Mockup
A realistic digital (or sometimes printed) rendition of a design project. This is often used to show a client how a proposed design layout would look — it gives them a better idea of the final product. For a web design, this would show an approximation of what the final page would look like in a screen shot of a browser.
pdf / Adobe PDF
Stands for Portable Document Format. This file format was created by Adobe®. Files are, as the name suggests, easily transferable without degradation and are self-contained, which means they’re an ideal format for ensuring that the file displays the same, provided the computer has the necessary plug-in installed. This plug-in can be downloaded for free from Adobe’s own website.
Pixel
Comes from the term picture element. It is the basic digital component that makes up a raster/bitmap image.
thumbnail
A small version of a larger image.
typeface
A typeface contains a series of fonts. For example, the typeface Arial contains the fonts Arial, Arial Bold, Arial Italic and Arial Bold Italic.
vector / vector graphic
A graphic image drawn using shapes and lines, called paths. Can be easily scaled up or down in size without affecting the quality of the image. This is the ideal format for project elements like a company logo. Vector graphics are typically created using design software such as Adobe Illustrator.
WYSIWYG
An abbreviation for What You See Is What You Get.
