25 Graphic Design Terms Every Graphic Designer Should Know

Graphic design is a profession and like any other profession, it has its jargon and terminology to communicate. If you want to take your marketing skills to the next level you will need to improve your designing understanding. You may ask, why is it essential to have design knowledge in our back pocket when there are experts out there who can make custom logo designs and graphics for you in no time? Well, you don’t need to be an expert for that. Knowing the designing jargon will help you explain your designs to clients and talk about your work like a pro. Here we have compiled the 25 most important graphic design terms you should know to 1. Ascender It the part of a lowercase letter that rises above the main body of the letter. “b” and d” are examples 2. Descenderr The part of lowercase alphabets that descends below the main body of the letter is called descender like “g” and “p” 3. Stock photor Stock photo is a collection of images by a third person which one can use for his purpose free of cost. It saves a lot of money otherwise go on professional shots. 4. DPI DPI stands “Dots per Inch” and is used for printing. 5. PPI PPI stands “pixels per inch”. It is used to define the measurement of screens like televisions, cameras. 6. Kerningr The adjustment of space between the pairs of letters in typography is called kerning 7. Leadingr Leading is the spacing between two successive baselines in a type. 8. Trackingr It is a uniform adjustment to the spacing of lines and paragraphs of a text. 9. CMYK CMYK, short for Cyan, magenta, yellow, and key (black), is a four-color process used when designing for prints. 10. RGB RGB is a color model in which Red, Green, and Blue are combined to form a broad and variant range of colors. 11. Thumbnailsr They are rough sketches that help to get an idea of the final layout of the design. They are very helpful in creating multiple options to obtain the best results. 12. Gridr Grid is both horizontal and vertical system of rows and columns used to provide the structure to a desig 13. Gradient A gradient is a gradual change from one color to another. 14. Cropr Corp is cutting away and discarding the unnecessary portion of an image. It gives new directions to the design. 15. Resolutionr Resolution is the number of units that occupy a linear line in an image. Resolution can be measured in both pixels per inch and dots per inch. Resolution determines the quality of an image 16. Knollingr The act of photographing perpendicularly placed objects from the top is knolling. It helps in creating a symmetrical look that seems quite attractive to the viewer. 17. Rasterr Raster images are consist of hundreds of thousands of pixels that determine the quality of the image. But they are resolution-dependent which means images have to lose its quality if it is being enlarged. 18. Vector A vector image is created with the help of mathematical equations using points, lines, and curves. It is resolution independent that is why the image can be resized without losing the quality 19. Opacityr Opacity is the quality of an image to be non-transparent. An image with high opacity is considered good in quality 20. White Spacer White space is the area of a design left bank. White space, as the name suggests, does not need to be white in color always, it can be any color. 21. Logo/Trademarkr It is a sign, mark, emblem, or design used to represent the company. 22. Monochromer The use of single color or different shades of the same color in a design is called monochrome. 23. Hierarchyr Hierarchy in typography helps to organize your text elements in order. Things are arranged according to their importance. Magazines, article and are good examples where you can find the text in and order subheadings follow headings, and then so on 24. Saturationr Saturation is the intensity of colors used in a design. 25. Blurr Blur is a process in design that makes the image less intense or unclear. It has a good application when we have to add text to an image. A Final Wordr We hope this list of terms will be helpful to you. We would love to hear any design term you hear regularly and would like some details on? Feel free to comment below.