Italics

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.

More terms you might want to know

Serif

The small decorative stroke at the end of a stroke in a letter, or a typeface.

Bleed

A printing term that describes how close an object is to the edge of a printed page. Bleeds are often used in graphic design for books, magazines, posters and other printed materials with photographs or illustrations.

Pixel

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

Tone

The feeling or mood created by a design.

Character Set

A set of symbols or "characters" including letters, numbers and various other symbols.

Die Cut

A type of print/design created with a metal stamp to create a shape out of paper using a die cutting machine. Die cuts can be used in apparel, home decor and promotional products.

PNG Image

A PNG (Portable Network Graphics) file is a bitmap image format that has been designed to store images with an alpha channel. This format is primarily used for transparency so that it can be placed over other graphics in many design applications.

Letterpress

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

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.

Warm Colours

Colours on the same side of the colour wheel as red, such as pink, orange and yellow.

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