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

Letterpress

A printing press that uses movable type and punches to make impressions on paper.

Icon

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.

Printer's Proof

A print that the printer receives to monitor the progress of production. Proofing is a matter of looking at the print to ensure that it has been printed correctly and that the colours are rendered accurately.

Trim Size

The width and height of a document, after having been cut down to size from a larger sheet.

Soft Return

Also called a line break, when you want to keep the text in one paragraph and not follow it with an airy space.

Contrast

Contrast in design can be accomplished by placing two opposite colours adjacent to one another, creating a focal point within the design that dominates the composition.

Leading

All available space (line-height) between two consecutive lines of text; this measurement should be adjusted for either ascenders or descenders. In hand typesetting, leading referred to thin strips of lead inserted by hand between lines of type in the composing stick to increase vertical distance.

Hero Image

The primary graphic that appears at the top of a webpage, designed to grab people's attention.

Pilcrow

Also called a paragraph mark, a paragraph sign or section marker, is a typographical character for separating paragraphs. It looks like a "ΒΆ".

Raster

Commonly used to describe a 2D graphic that is made up of an organized grid of pixels, in other words, a bitmap.

Problem?

Got a suggestion or found an issue with the glossary?
Let me know!