Design glossary

Design language, translated into plain English

The terms you will hear in a branding, website, packaging or print project—defined without expecting you to be a designer.

A

Accessibility: The practice of making products and communications usable by people with a wide range of abilities, devices and assistive technologies.

Bleed: Artwork extended beyond a print trim line so small cutting variations do not leave an unintended white edge.
Brand architecture: The relationship and naming logic between a parent brand, sub-brands, products and services.
Brand identity: The coordinated verbal and visual system used to make a brand recognizable and consistent.
Brand positioning: The specific place a brand aims to occupy in the audience’s mind relative to alternatives.
Brand guidelines: Documented rules and examples for applying an identity consistently.

CMYK: Cyan, magenta, yellow and black inks used in common commercial printing.
Color contrast: The measurable difference in luminance between foreground and background colors, important for legibility.
Creative brief: A concise agreement on the problem, audience, goals, constraints, deliverables and approval process.

Dieline: A production template showing the cuts, folds, glue areas and safe zones of packaging.
DPI: Dots per inch, a print-output measure often used informally when discussing raster image resolution.

EPS: A production-oriented graphics format commonly used to exchange vector artwork with printers and sign makers.

Favicon: A small site icon displayed in browser tabs, bookmarks and some search interfaces.

Grid: A system of columns, rows and spacing used to align content and create visual order.

Leading: The vertical space between lines of type.
Lockup: A fixed arrangement of brand elements, such as a symbol, wordmark and tagline.
Logomark: A symbol used to identify a brand, with or without a wordmark.

Mockup: A presentation showing how a design may look in context; it is not usually production-ready artwork.

Negative space: Unoccupied space within or around design elements that shapes composition and legibility.

Pantone: A proprietary standardized color-matching system frequently used to specify spot inks.

Raster image: An image made from a fixed grid of pixels, such as a PNG or JPG.
Responsive logo: A family of related logo configurations designed to remain clear at different sizes and contexts.
RGB: Red, green and blue light values used to describe colors on screens.

Safe area: The region of a design where important content can sit without risk from cropping, trimming or interface overlays.
SVG: Scalable Vector Graphics, a web-friendly vector format that remains sharp at different sizes.

Tracking: Uniform adjustment to spacing across a range of letters.
Typography hierarchy: The use of size, weight, spacing and placement to show the relative importance of text.

Vector graphic: Artwork defined by mathematical paths that can scale without pixelation.
Visual identity: The visual portion of a brand system, including logo, color, typography, imagery and graphic behavior.

WCAG: The Web Content Accessibility Guidelines, an international standard for accessible digital content.
White space: Intentional empty space that separates elements and improves focus, hierarchy and comprehension.

Scalable branding solutions that maximise ROI, from a single logo to a complete identity system, priced for every budget.

Sell your custom-made logos and get paid for your time and effort. We're always looking for skilled, creative professionals to join our growing team.