Basic Desktop Terminology By Wendi Cochran Douglas High School

Basic Layout Terms Use the websites listed to find examples of the design terms defined.

Alignment Alignment of text and or graphics on a document. Illustrating the Principles of Design http://desktoppub.about.com/od/designprinciples/l/aa_pod2.htm

Asymmetrical Design Contemporary design in which contrasing elements of unequal weight and proportion are positioned on a page to achieve balance. http://desktoppub.about.com/od/designprinciples/g/asymmetrical.htm

Balance Attain balance by equally distributing the weight of various elements, such as blocks of text, graphics, images, headings, ruled lines, white space on a page. Balance is usually symmetrical or asymmetrical. Look up the following site: Illustrating the Principles of Design http://desktoppub.about.com/od/designprinciples/l/aa_pod2.htm

Consistency Uniformity among specific design elements establishes a pattern of consistency in your document. Inconsistency can confuse and frustrate the reader and can lead to a reduction in readership. http://desktoppub.about.com/od/consistency/Consistency.htm

Contrast The difference between varying degrees of lightness and darkness on the page. Illustrating the Principles of Design http://desktoppub.about.com/od/designprinciples/l/aa_pod2.htm

Directional Flow Positioning elements to draw the reader’s eyes through the document. http://pcworld.about.com/news/Oct162002id105141.htm

Focus An elements used to attract the reader’s eyes.

Legibility The ease with which individual characters are recognized.

Proportion Sizing elements in relation to their relative importance and to each other. http://desktoppub.about.com/od/designprinciples/l/aa_pod2.htm

Symmetrical Design Balancing similar elements equally on a page(centered alignment).

White Space Background space with no text or graphics. Illustrating the Principles of Design http://desktoppub.about.com/od/designprinciples/l/aa_pod2.htm

Z-Pattern When scanning a paper the eyes have a tendency to move in a Z pattern.

Typography Terms

Ascenders Ascender: Parts of fonts that extend above the x-height. http://climbing.about.com/od/climbingequipmentwords/a/AscendersDef.htm

Baseline Imaginary horizontal line on which characters rest.

Cap Height Distance between the baseline and top of the capital letters. http://graphicdesign.about.com/od/typographyfonts/tp/letter_anatomy.htm

Descenders Parts of fonts that extend below the baseline. http://desktoppub.about.com/cs/typeanatomy/g/descender.htm

Kerning Decreasing or increasing the horizontal space between specific character pairs. On the font dialog box under Character Spacing in Word. http://desktoppub.about.com/cs/typespacing/a/kerningtracking.htm http://desktoppub.about.com/od/typelayout/g/kerning.htm

Pitch The number of characters that can be printed in one horizontal inch.

Point Size Point Size: l/72 of an inch. 72 points are equal to one inch

Sans Serif Without small strokes at the end of characters. Examples of Sans Serif Fonts: Arial Tahoma Antique Olive

Serif Fonts A small stroke at the end of a character. Examples of Serif Fonts Times New Roman Garamond

Typeface Font Styles A set of characters with a common design and shape. Such as Impact, Times New Roman, Arial

Typestyle 4 categories of styles Normal (regular, roman) Bold Italic

X-Height Height of the font’s lowercase x.

Drop Cap Decorative first letter of paragraph or sentence used to draw the reader’s eye. http://pcworld.about.com/magazine/2402p022id124015.htm

Tracking Which refers to the horizontal spacing between letters or characters. http://desktoppub.about.com/cs/typespacing/a/kerningtracking.htm

Leading Refers to the amount of added vertical spacing between lines of type. In consumer-oriented word processing software, this concept is usually referred to as "line spacing". http://desktoppub.about.com/cs/typespacing/a/leading.htm

Weight The thickness or heaviness of the strokes of a font style. Font weights generally range from 'light', on to 'medium' and then through to 'heavy'. With the advent of digital fonts technology, there are now more choices of font weights than ever.

Color and Graphic Terms

Hue The variation of the primary color such as green-blue.

Metafiles Graphic files that allow images to be ungrouped and edited in Microsoft applications.

Pixel Short for picture element, a pixel is each individual dot or square or color in a picture or bitmapped graphic. http://desktoppub.about.com/cs/designelements/qt/pixelements.htm

Raster Graphics A raster image is a bitmapped image where pixels of color are used to create an image. http://graphicssoft.about.com/od/glossary/g/bitmap.htm

RGB Red, Green and Blue colors that makeup today’s computer monitors. http://graphicssoft.about.com/od/glossary/g/rgb.htm

Contrast The amount of gray in a color.

Resolution Is the number of dots that make up an image on a screed or printer-the higher the resolution, the denser the number of dots and “higer resolution” of the print. http://desktoppub.about.com/od/resolution/Resolution.htm

Gradient Gradual varying of color

Grayscale Is the range of shades from black to white.

CYMK This is an acronym for cyan, yellow, magenta and black. A color printer combines these colors to create different colors. http://graphicssoft.about.com/od/glossary/g/cmyk.htm

Brightness Is the amount of light in a color.

Luminosity The brightness of a color, that is, the amount of black and white added to a color. The larger the luminosity number, the lighter the color. http://graphicssoft.about.com/od/glossary/ig/Blending-Modes/Blend-Luminosity.htm

Saturation This is the purity of a color. A color is completely pure, or saturated when it is not diluted with white. Red, for example, has a high saturation value

Vector Graphic These graphics are made up of mathematically defined lines and curves. A vector graphic picture can be moved, resized, recolored, and enlarged without affecting its output quality at all. http://graphicssoft.about.com/od/glossary/l/blvector.htm

Scale To increase or decrease the size of an image proportionally or disproportionally.

Twain A cross-platform interface for acquiring electronic images captured by scanners and digital cameras. http://graphicssoft.about.com/od/glossary/f/twain.htm