CMYK is a colour space created for the printing process. It stands for Cyan Magenta Yellow Key (black).
A file format that supports both static and animated images. It is a popular file format on the internet and social media due to its wide colour support, portability, and animating capabilities.
A concept used in systems design to describe the negative consequences of making seemingly innocuous design changes. Shorthand for a product's delayed but inevitable need to be reworked due to earlier, seemingly trivial decisions not having been fully thought through in the original release.
Designers incur this "debt" by making quick and easy choices that save time in the present but cause more complex problems later on down the road when it becomes necessary to change or add something.
A technique for understanding people’s experience of a product or service. Participants are asked to keep daily records of their experience using the product, and these records are taken into consideration when designing the design.
Framing consisting of cutting off or obscuring most of the surrounding of a subject, removing distractions from the background and emphasising the subject.
The process of adjusting the spacing between individual letters to improve or avoid particular visual distortions.
A way of expressing colours on digital media. To specify a hex code, you need to consider the three primary colours: red, green and blue. The hex code is always six characters long and looks like this: #RRGGBB and their values range from 00 to FF.
The art of drawing original characters and symbols — especially for decorative purposes.
The distance between the baseline and the mean line of lowercase letters in a typeface. Nearby descenders (such as j) and ascenders (such as q) usually extend slightly below or above this height.
Also known as visual hierarchy, hierarchy is the ordering of priorities in a design. This may include different visual elements, such as contrast, colour, font size and placement on a page. The graphic designer's job is to create an understandable document using organisational systems that the reader easily understands.
A quick and rough sketch of what you are about to work on. Good for getting the ideas out of your head and onto the page while you're still in that creative phase.