Design Glossary

Terminal

The end (straight or curved) of any stroke that doesn’t include a serif. Some typefaces feature ball terminals on letters such as the ‘f’, ‘a’, and ‘c’.

Texture

The surface quality of an element.

Thumbnail

A small, non-preview image that accompanies a larger image. It provides an immediate sense of the content while not necessarily revealing it in its entire scope.

Thumbnail Sketch

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.

TIFF File

A Tagged Image File Format is a file format for storing images losslessly.

Tint

A generic term for adding colour to an image. A tint can be applied by darkening a colour to create different shades or lightening the saturation, creating a washed-out look.

Tittle

The typographic term for the dot above the letters 'i' and 'j'.

Tone

The feeling or mood created by a design.

Tracking

The adjustment of all characters in a line by moving them closer together or farther apart.

Triadic Colours

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