Five Graphic Design Terms to Help you Talk the Talk!

Communicate Effectively with Your Graphic Designer  Five Design Terms to Help You Talk the Talk! Do you sometimes feel that your designer is speaking another language? Do you worry that important information might be getting lost in translation? Communication is key in any relationship, and it is especially important when the success of your business is involved. I wanted to provide you with definitions of a few commonly used design terms that you can use to not only understand your designer better, but to communicate with them on a higher level. 1. Concepts: After we have learned about your business, discussed your project, and the goals that you want to achieve, the creative fun begins! The designer’s next step is typically to come up with examples, or design solutions, to meet your needs—these are referred to as “concepts.” I usually create three concepts to offer my clients a variety of solutions to the same problem. From here you choose which concept your want to expand on and move forward. 2. Bleed: A design element that runs to the very edge of the page is a “bleed.” This is commonly used when designing for print and gives you a more professional look, because it indicates professional printing rather then printing from your home inkjet or laser printer. Printing on a larger sheet and then cutting to the finished size creates the bleed effect. 3. CMYK: CMYK is also known as the four-color process (the four colors are Cyan, Magenta, Yellow, and Black). In the printing process your file is separated into these four colors and each color plate is run individually. The blending and layering of these fours colors together create the full color spectrum. 4. PMS: In the graphic design world, PMS = Pantone Matching System. This is a standard color system where a number specifies each color and the inks are specially mixed to create the color. This assures consistent results from one print vendor to the next; there is not much color variance by using PMS. These ink colors are also known as “spot colors” and can be printed on their own or in addition to the CMKY process (see CMYK defined above). You can learn more about pantone colors at, <a href="http://www.pantone.com/">www.pantone.com</a> or http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pantone. Pantone has been working on steering away from the PMS acronym (mood swings, anyone?), but I think it will still be around for a while. 5. Web Safe Colors: A group of 200+ colors deemed “safe” because they are supposed to remain consistent when viewed on a variety of computer screens. Unfortunately, colors will appear differently on screen then they do when printed, and colors will also appear differently on various computer screens. This could be a problem when you want to extend your brand from printed materials to the web. A good graphic designer will share these differences with you and will work with you to find the best possible colors for both on-screen and print color schemes. For more terms and definitions, check out these online graphic design dictionaries, www.graphicdesigndictionary.com and www.designtalkboard.com/glossary. Learning these terms and concepts will help you to understand your designer’s language and help her to make you look your best!  2008-05-07T21:23:07Z

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five-graphic-design-terms-to-help-you-talk-the-talk

2008-05-07T21:38:41Z

Do you sometimes feel that your designer is speaking another language? I have picked 5 of the most commonly used graphic design terms, and provided definitions so you can communicate more effectively with your designer.

Five Graphic Design Terms to Help you Talk the Talk!

2009-02-24T09:44:18Z