A small picture or design that represents an idea, function, or some other type of visual concept. For example, in computer graphics and web development, an icon is a pictorial representation of a program or file type.
A specific set of colours, usually with a limited number of values, chosen to suit the needs of a particular design.
Also known as the divine proportion, is a number, or a ratio, sometimes approximated by phi and widely considered aesthetically pleasing. The golden ratio has been featured in nature and art in many ways, including hexagonal honeycombs, the human body, and mathematics. More frequently, it is used in design and digital art to represent a path (or steps) one can take to achieve a particular look or result. In art, an artist may produce something (a painting or drawing, for example) using the golden ratio as a basis for its composition.
A selector that can be applied to any HTML element. Classes should be used when designing for multiple instances. For example, if you want all <h1> tags in the website to look blue, then you could use the class="blue-text" attribute.
A data visualisation tool that can be used to explore and group people's thoughts or reactions to a set of concepts. Affinity diagrams are often used in user research and design thinking as an experimental technique for generating new ideas or solutions.
The emergent patterns in these visual representations can help identify which aspects your audience will respond well to, thus enabling decisions on the information architecture and next steps in the process.
It is important to note that affinity diagrams were initially developed for qualitative research but have since been adapted for quantitative research (though they are not typically used with statistical data).
The portion of a letter such as y, p, q or j that hangs below the baseline of the text.
The primary graphic that appears at the top of a webpage, designed to grab people's attention.
The setting on a camera's lens which controls how much light comes into the camera. Aperture settings can usually be set to F-stop values ranging from F1.4-F22. The higher the aperture value, the smaller the opening is, and vice versa, which affects the depth of field in photos and how much light reaches and illuminates a subject or scene in a photo.
The feeling or mood created by a design.
A type of typographical contrast used to convey emphasis. Italics were initially developed for the printing press and are now widely used in print, web design, public signs and labelling systems.
Vector graphics are made up of two sets of points: control points (which determine shape) and anchor points (determining length). Anchor points attach geometry to form a shape like a ball or a heart.