Balance

The principle of both sides of an object having a sense of symmetry. It ensures that the weight and visual mass are distributed evenly on both sides of a surface. Balance is more important than symmetry because people don't often notice when something is asymmetrical, but they will always see if something is unbalanced.

More terms you might want to know

Font Case

The way characters are capitalised within a word or phrase. Common font cases are uppercase, lowercase, capitalised (or title case) and sentence case.

Stem

The part of a letter, usually a vertical line, that rise above the x-height.

Bold

A greater typographic weight than the standard typeface, often used to highlight text that the writer wants to emphasise or denote sections, headlines or quotes in printed material.

Bold type is a little heavier than the average type because of its higher contrast, making it more readable. The opposite of bold type is light type, also known as regular or book.

User Scenario

An example of a typical user and the actions they take. Typically these are written in the form of a story.

Carousel

A series of slides that are positioned one after the other. As you scroll through the images, the next image in the sequence is automatically loaded. Once you scroll to the end of the carousel, it cycles back around like a horse on a circular track.

Mood board

A collage consisting of images, colours and text that is assembled to convey an idea or theme.

Triadic Colours

A triad is a group of three colours that are equally spaced on the colour wheel.

Orphan

One or more words (typically at the end of a paragraph) that are separated from the rest of the text. Orphans are generally thought of as bad design, but it’s a matter of taste.

Scale

The distance between two points of extrusion or an object. It can also be defined as the measurement of size.

CMYK

CMYK is a colour space created for the printing process. It stands for Cyan Magenta Yellow Key (black).

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