home > design > glossary of some graphic design terms

Updated 2/25/09

baseline   an imaginary line on which the x-height of the type is aligned

cmyk   acronym for the four ink colors -- Cyan, Magenta, Yellow and Key (black) -- used in printing [ cmyk color guides ]

greeking   rules or dummy Latin text used to show the look of a page without having to actually typeset the words

grid   horizontal and vertical rules used to plan the placement of text and graphics on the page

halftone   a series of dots obtained by photographing a continuous tone illustration or photograph through a finely ruled screen, that look like gray tones when printed

kerning   adjusting the space between characters to improve the look of display type

layout   arrangement of text and graphics on a page [ layout books ]

lino, linotronic   professional-quality, high resolution output printed from files prepared on a desktop system [ printing checklists ]

mechanical   type and line art in place on an artboard with an attached overlay that includes instructions for colors, halftones, and any other information to the printer

pms   acronym for Pantone Matching System, a graphics industry standard spot color printing system [ pantone color guides ]

reverse   white on a color background

rules   lines, used as graphics or to represent text

screen   gray or other tint created by using a percentage of a color

type   catch-all word used in reference to fonts / typefaces [ typography books ]

x-height   height of a lowercase letter without its ascendar or descender

> The Meaning of Graphic Design
> Glossary of Some Graphic Design Terms
> What is Computer Graphic Design?
> What Do Graphic Designers Do?