Tag: Vocabulary

Design Vocabulary – Color Terms – Week 2

Arrons third post, this time color terminology, you may have seen some of these terms used in some of your graphic applications so now you can learn alittle bit more about what they mean, feel free to contribute a color term in the comments to add to this post.

Gamut (GAM-ut):

Gamut is the range of available color on an output device. Each device has its own gamut capabilities. If the gamut fall out of that particular devices range, it is shown inaccurately on the display or cannot be printed. We then say a color is “out of gamut”.

Hue:

The basis of a color and usually refers to the name of the color (red, purple, yellow, etc.)

Saturation:

Saturation is the color intensity of an image. A color with high saturation will appear brighter and more vibrant than the same color with low saturation. Colors in gray scale images have no saturation.

Value:

The lightness or darkness of a gray or a color. The darkest level or value of gray is black and the lightest level of gray is white.

Tint:

A variation of a color obtained by adding white

Shade:

A variation of a color obtained by adding black.

Know More?

I know there are many more terms when it comes to color, but I like to keep these short. If you have more please add them in your comments.

Design Vocabulary – Typography Terms – Week 1

Hey everyone, I thought it would be a good idea to share some of the terms designers kick around. This is the first of what I plan to be weekly posts to teach you all some “design speak” in small bite size pieces. Enjoy!

To kick things off on this inaugural list: Typography Terms!

Kern:

to squeeze together characters, for a better fit of strokes and white space. In display type, characters almost need to be kerned because the white space between characters at large sizes is more noticeable.

Pica (PIE-ka):

A measurement used in typography for column widths and other space specifications in a page layout. There are 12 points in a pica, and approximately 6 picas to an inch.

Point:

A measurement used in typography for type size, leading, and other space specifications in a page layout. There are 12 points in a pica, and approximately 70 points to an inch.

Leading (LED-ing):

The space between lines of type, traditionally measured

baseline-to-baseline, in points. Text type is generally set with one or two points of leading; for example, 10-point type with 2 points of leading. This is described as 10/12, read “Ten on Twelve” or “Ten over Twelve”.

x-height:

The height of the lowercase “x.” More generally, the height of the lowercase letters.

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