PRINT & DESIGN TERMS TO PUT IN YOUR BACK POCKET
It’s not a foreign language, but the words print designers throw around sometimes are admittedly specific to the industry. It’s good to know a few key terms so when you’re working on a print or design project, you’re catching some of their lingo.
Adobe. This company is probably the leading creative software provider in the world—they provide a suite of tools designers rely on daily to do their jobs. Their software and file formats are industry standard for print design and printers (and web).
.ai, .psd, .indd, .pdf. These are the standard formats that every printer will accept as printable files. It’s what the designer will create and the printer will receive in order to get your project completed.
Legibility. The measure of how easy it is to distinguish one letter from the next; legibility has a lot to do with white space, your choice of typeface and how you use it.
White space. Also called negative space, it’s the area between and around design elements. It can feel like wasted space to non-designers, but it actually serves an important role in balancing design elements and helping to achieve a clean and visually pleasing experience. And it doesn’t have to be white.
CMYK. Cyan, magenta, yellow, key (black). These four colors are the four inks that most color printers use to replicate the full range of the color spectrum.
Pantone Matching System (PMS). The Pantone Matching System (PMS) is a standardized system of colors for printing. Every Pantone shade is numbered, making it much easier for people to reference and identify exact shades of color.
