Gestalt Theory

A theory in psychology that discusses the general idea that the whole is greater than the sum of its parts. It's based on a human need to search for stability and meaning, which leads to organic movements towards wholeness. Gestalt Theory assumes there are inherent flaws in how we perceive forms and patterns, and it holds that this innate tendency transforms into an active process of looking for order in reality.

More terms you might want to know

PSD File

A digital file created in Adobe's illustration and photo manipulation software Photoshop. PSD files are used to edit images, create graphics, art, icons, images, among a plethora of other things.

Monochrome

Designs that are created in one colour. It can be any colour, but the whole design will range from light to darker shades. As the name implies, it is typically a single hue, with black and white also being typical combinations for this type of design.

Lowercase

The designation of a set of character encoding styles for glyphs that are not capital letters.

RGB

Red, green, and blue. These colours can be used to form a wide variety of colours in different devices such as computer monitors and televisions.

Font Type

Most typefaces are classified into one of five basic classifications: serif, sans serif, script, monospaced, and display.

Serial Position Effect

A phenomenon in psychology in which recalling items in a list imposes an order on the list, with the first and last items remembered best. That is, if given a list of words to remember like "dog apple tree", people will tend to recall "dog" as being at the beginning of the sentence and "tree" as being at the end of it.

Landing Page

A standalone web page with content intended to capture a visitor. Often, it has the same URL as the website's home page and is used in paid or sponsored search engine marketing (known more commonly as pay-per-click) advertising campaigns.

Proximity

The placement or otherwise of a thing in relation to other things. In design, proximity may be considered as the distance between two items in space or their relative location to each other.

Copy

The written information that accompanies a design.

Pixel

A pixel, or a picture element, is the smallest addressable element in a display device.

Problem?

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