5 Graphic Design Terms Explained for Non Graphic Designers

​Are you overwhelmed by the graphic design terms you see around? Trying to get a file ready for print but don’t know what is required? What is a ‘print safe zone’ or ‘bleed’? For this months One Bite Design blog I thought I would take the time to clarify a few commonly used graphic design terms and explain them for you. Buckle in… I hope you find this helpful!

​5 Commonly Used Graphic Design Terms Explained:

1. CMYK, RGB & Pantone Colours:
   CMYK: This stands for cyan, magenta, yellow, and key, or black. This colour type is traditionally and commonly used for print. Different percentages of the 4 colours are used they make up many colour variations and shades.
   RGB: This stands for red, green, and blue. This colour type offers a wider spectrum of colour and commonly allows brighter more vibrant colours in comparison to CMYK. The colours you view on your screen are in RGB so you must make sure you change your colours to CMYK and view them CMYK before you go to print as some colours do not convert well from RGB to CMYK
   Spot colour: Spot colours or Pantone colours are colours that are created with a specifically made ink. It allows for colours and vibrancy that may otherwise not be able to be made via CMYK. This includes but isn’t limited to metallic and fluorescent colours. 
2. File Formats: These are some of the common file formats used by Graphic Designers.
   EPS: ‘Encapsulated Postscript’. This is a vector file, its images can be easily resized which is great for printed designs.
   GIF: ‘Graphics Interchange Format’. This file type is commonly used for sending images online. They are compressed files and tend to be small in file size and quality. They can also be animated files used to form a short looping video. You may have seen my Facebook posts that say ‘use the GIF comment option’. They can be great fun!
   JPEG: ‘Joint Photographic Experts Group’. JPEGs do not allow transparent backgrounds like PNG’s do – explained in the next point. JPEGs cannot be animated like GIF’s. With JPEG files you can control the level of compression and it is a file format that is compatible with most applications. 
   
PNG: ‘Portable Network Graphics’. This is one of the most popular file types for the internet. The thing I like about PNG files is that they offer transparency, this is ideal for logos. 
   TIFF: ‘Tagged Image File Format’. This file format is great for storing photographs and other large images. It can compress the image while maintaining its quality. It is the perfect format for printing photos.


3. Crop Marks: These are small lines placed on the outer the edge of the finished graphic that show where to cut or trim the final graphic to the finished size. When the printed items are trimmed these lines do not appear on the finished item. 


4. Bleed: This is the term that is used for printing that goes beyond the edge of where the graphic will be trimmed. This gives the printer a small amount of space (between 1.5-5mm) to account for movement of the paper or card when stacked up to be trimmed. Any background colours or images that are being used on a printed document will need a bleed area. 
5. Print Safe Zone: This is an area inside the trim line that is used to help make sure that any movement when trimming doesn’t affect your graphic. Within this zone you should position all your information and images. Any content outside of this area is in risk of being cut off.
   
   

OK so that takes us to the end of 5 Graphic Design terms that you can now use with the confidence of knowing that both you and your graphic designer are speaking the same lingo. Like any technical field there are so many more terms out there that it really can feel like a new language. Happily it’s a language that I’ve spent 20 years learning to understand and working with clients to take their concepts, translate them into graphics and presenting them in a form that is pleasing to the client and technically perfect for the printer or programmer. Do you have a design challenge that I can help with? Drop me a note, I’d love to put my experience to work for you.

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