A - ALIGNMENT

Alignment is the position of text or graphics, whether left, right, centred or full justified. It’s very easy to notice when elements in a design aren’t aligned.

b - Balance

This isn’t your ability to walk across a beam. In design, balance involved the placement of elements on the page so text and graphics are evenly distributed. Balance can be achieved symmetrically, asymmetrically, and radically.

C - CMYK

The colour mode which should be used when designing for print. The letters stand for Cyan, Magenta, Yellow, and Key (Black), which are the most widely used colours in printing. Similarly, to RGB, these colours can be combined in a variety of ways to produce a majority of print colours although are subtractive so get darker as they are combined. Key (black) is added over the top of the other tree as mixing them will never produce a pure black.

D - DISPLAY TYPE

A type that is 14 point or larger and is typically used in small quantities for emphasis and effect. They are designed to make an impact and catch the eye.

E - Emblem

Emblem logos use frames and shapes to enclose the company or organisation like badges, seals and crests.

F - FONT TYPES

Most fonts fall into one of four different front types; Serif, Sans serif, Script, Slab serif.

G - Grid

I cannot stress how important grids are to a designer. A grid is a series of intersecting vertical, horizontal, angular, or curved lines used to organise graphic elements on a page as well as in relation to one another. They provide structure, consistency, and accuracy in design.

H - Hierarchy

In design, hierarchy refers to the organisation of elements by level of importance. Newspapers, magazine spreads, and movie posters are good examples of the use of hierarchy in design.

I - Icon

We see icons everyday – they’re the images used to represent objects or actions. The most common example is a magnifying glass used to signify a search.

J - Justified

 Instances when text is aligned to the left and right margin within a text frame.

K - Kerning

The space between two specific letters or characters, and the process of adjusting the space between letters or characters. Kerning can increase the legibility of a word or an entire block of text. It helps to create proportional and balanced typography and, consequently, better looking typography.

L - Lorem ipsum

Lorem ipsum is dummy text used as a placeholder until it can be swapped out later with the actual copy. The lorem ipsum text comes from “The Extremes of Good and Evil,” written by Cicero in 45BCE.

M - Mock Up

A real or digital model, usually 3D, used to test early design ideas to see how they could look in the real world.

N - Noise

Used to describe the development of grainy pixel that contain random colours.

O - Opacity

The degree of a colour or tonal value. The opacity of an image or object that can range from transparent (0% opacity) to opaque (100% opacity). The ability to edit the opacity of specific objects allows designers to create images that seem to flow into and through one another.

P - Proximity

The way in which design elements are grouped or spaced on a page – great design groups like elements together.

Q - Quick Keys

Quick keys, shortcuts, or whatever you call them are one of the most important things for a designer to know. They refer to the certain keys on your keyboard that allow you to carry out specific function in a single click rather than a longer more complicated process. Some quick keys you may be familiar with include CTRL + C and CTRL + V.

R - Repetition

To maintain a unified look, designers repeat elements throughout a design.

S - Scale

The size of an object in relation to another object. Scale can be used to create interest and grab a viewer’s attention.

t - thumbnail sketch

When conceptualising, a designer will often create small, rough drawings - a thumbnail sketch – to explore many ideas.

u - uppercase

Uppercase characters are the capital letters of the alphabet, uppercase in design is when all letters in the word or sentence use capital letters. The term uppercase is derived from the days of metal type where the lesser used capital letters were kept in the harder to reach upper case whereas the more frequently used letters were kept nearer at hand.

v - vector

A vector is a graphic image that is made with mathematical equations – they’re defined in terms of 2D points connected by lines and curves to form shapes. Basically this means that vectors can be resized or scaled to any size without losing quality or getting blurry.

W - White Space

Also called negative space, is the part of the design that is unmarked by imagery or text.

X - X-Height

This is very literally the height of a lowercase x in a specific font. You may wonder why such a specific height is so important. However, the x-height affects the proportion of any font and, in turn, its legibility. It can be assumed that as the x-height increases legibility improves.

z - Zoom

Most design software lets you zoom in or out of an image to get a closer or farther away look. Zooming in is especially useful when working on tiny details or needing to see the whole project.