A Designer’s Lexicon

This lexicon lists terms used in layout and design. Most writers want to see a printed edition of their works; these are the words used by print designers, graphic artists, and typographers.

[A] [B] [C] [D] [E] [F] [G] [H] [I] [J] [K] [L] [M]
[N] [O] [P] [Q] [R] [S] [T] [U] [V] [W] [X] [Y] [Z]

- A -

agate - Type smaller than 8 points. Usually set in a sans-serif typeface.

air - White space.

ascender - The portion of a letter appearing above the top of a lowercase letter x. Letters with ascenders include b, d, f, h, k, l, and t.

- B -

banner - A wide headline across three or more columns.

baseline An imaginary line on which type is set. Descenders fall below this line.

bastard measure - Columns are “bastards” if not set to a standard width. Standard widths are 9, 10, 11, and multiples of 6 picas.

body - The central part of any document. In an article, also known as copy.

body copy / text - (1) printing: The font used for the text of articles. In DTP, the most common body copy font is Times 12-point. (2) editing: The body.

bold / boldface - Applying a thicker stroke to a typeface without altering the measure in points.

border - A rule or line to set off an element on a page.

braces / brackets - Punctuation marks [{}] [[ ]] used to signify omitted words or to add a clarification within text.

broadsheet - Traditionally, the full-size of an American newspaper, 14×23 inches.

bullet - A type of dingbat [•] often used to indicate items in a list.

byline - The writer’s name when placed before or after the article. Some publications do not print bylines.

- C -

caption - A block of text, often in agate or near-agate size, describing a design element, such as a photo or graphic.

cicero - European measure in publishing; slightly larger than a pica. One inch is 5.62 ciceros.

clip art / clipart - Copyright-free or licensed artwork purchased from an outside source.

column - A single vertical arrangement of text. Also known as a leg of text.

column balancing - Aligning columns on a page by ensuring each column has the same number of lines of text.

column-inch - A measure used to describe an area one column wide and one inch deep. The column width may vary, making this an imprecise measure. Often, newspapers define a column inch as two inches wide (12 picas) and one inch deep. Sometimes seen as column inch, with no hyphen.

copy - Text in an article.

crop - Trimming artwork to fit a desired location in a publication’s layout. Always crop electronically or from a reprint of a photo — never crop the original art work.

coutout - A photo with the background removed. Some artists prefer the term silhouette. In image editing, the removed area is a mask.

- D -

dash - A punctuation mark [—] used to separate and enclose items that dramatically interrupt a thought. A dash is not a hyphen — it is longer and thinner in typography.

deck - A headline, usually half the point measure of the primary, running below the primary headline.

descender - The portion of a letter printed below the baseline. Letters with descenders include g, j, p, q, and y.

dingbat - A special character such as a star, bullet, or other symbol.

display deadline - A headline set in a decorative or script font.

double truck - Two pages, side-by-side, treated as one layout.

downstyle - Capitalizing only the first letter and proper nouns within headlines.

DPI - Dots-per-inch. The greater the DPI value of a computer printer or scanner, the higher the qaulity of images.

DTP - Desktop publishing. Home, small office, and in-house designers rely on DTP.

dummy - A mock-up of a layout.

- E -

em dash - A long dash [—], approximately the width of the capital letter M.

en dash - A short dash [–], approximately the width of the capital lettern N.

em space - A blank space equal to a capital M. An em space varies with the font used.

en space - A blank space, based on the width of the capital letter N.

- F -

face - A typeface in a given style and weight, in all point sizes. Computer programs sometimes use font to mean face. (ex: New Brunswick Bold Italic)

family - All the weights and styles of one typeface.

flag - The name of a publication as it appears on the cover or on page one of a newspaper. Flags are also known as nameplates.

flush - Term describing lines of text that begin or end evenly with other lines in a column. Type might be flush-left or flush-right.

folio - A line of type including a publication’s name, date, and page numbers. A publication’s folio is similar to a typed manuscript’s header or footer.

font - A typeface at a given size, weight, and style. (10-point New Brunswick Bold Italic)

- G -

graf - Designer’s slang for paragraph. Designers aren’t lazy, just efficient.

grid - The underlying pattern of a modular page layout.

gutter - The distance between two columns of text.

- H -

hanging indent - Text set with the first line offset to the left of the remainder of each paragraph.

headline - Large type meant to draw attention to an article. Headlines run above or to the side of articles.

hyphen - A punctuation mark [-] used to join compound words or to break typed words across two lines on a page.

- I -

initial cap - A large capital letter used to indicate the start of a article or section within an article.

inset - Artwork or articles appearing within a dominant article.

italic - Type slanting slightly and usually stylized, with many letters changed dramatically. Oblique is not italic.

- J -

justification - The postion of text in relation to a column. Text may be justified right, left, centered, or full (both right and left).

- K -

kerning - The space between a specific pair of letters. Letter pairs with t and f tend to be closer together than other pairs.

kicker - A brief headline, just above the primary headline. Kickers are set in smaller type and often underlined.

- L -

layout - The final design of a printed page.

leading - Line spacing measured from the bottom of the letter x to the top of a capital letter on the next line.

liftout - A quote or phrase set apart from an article. Liftouts highlight material in the article – never remove the original text.

logo - A word or name that has been stylized, often with icons.

- M -

margin - The distance from the edge of a page to the nearest block of text.

masthead - Often called a staff box, a box including a reduced image of a publication’s nameplate accompanied by a list of staff members

modular - A layout term describing elements in rectangular shapes fitted together.

- N -

nameplate - The logo of a newspaper or magazine. see flag

- O -

oblique - Text slanted to the right or left without using the italic version of the typeface.

orphan - A word or short phrase at the top of a column, often the last of a sentence from a previous column. Try to avoid orphans, except in Dickens.

- P -

paste-up - The process of assembling a page. Taken from the process of pasting articles to a layout sheet.

pica - Slightly less than 1/6th of an inch.

point - A measure of 1/12th of a pica. There are 72.27 points in one inch.

proof - A printed copy of a page, usually in black and white, meant to check for errors.

pull quote - see liftout

- Q -

quotation marks - Punctuation marks [“ ”] enclosing direction quotations, titles of short works, and words used for emphasis. Quotes are not tick marks [´ ˝], which are used to indicate measurements. (note: ticks might not appear properly in all web browsers.)

quote - see liftout

- R -

register - To verify color inks are printing in alignment. Some printer software can generate color registration marks to check the quality of color. Most magazines or newspapers have visible registration tests.

reverse - Type appearing in white or light print on a dark background.

Roman - Upright type with serifs. Roman also refers to type in “normal” weight, without bold or italic effects.

rule - A straight line.

- S -

sans serif - Any typeface without added strokes for effect. Usually, sans faces are smooth in appearance. (ex: Arial, Avante Garde, Helvetica) Also known as sans and Swiss forms.

scale - To enlarge or reduce the size of an object. Scaling differs from cropping.

screaming - see yelling

serif - An ornamental stroke used to add flair to a typeface. Serif faces are also known as Roman and book forms. (ex: Times, Palatino, Century Schoolbook)

sidebar - A small story or facts accompanying a larger article.

sig - The “signature” of a column. A sig is a logo appearing on a regular basis. It is usually a photo and name of the columnist.

signature - (1) type: A face identified with a brand or design. (2) printing: A set of 16 book or magazine pages, which were once printed on a single sheet then cut for book binding.

silhouette - see cut-out

style / styling - Font styles are Roman, oblique, italic, expanded, condensed, and compressed.

subhead - A headline, smaller than the primary head, used to divide article sections.

- T -

tabloid - A publication, on newsprint, one-half the size of a traditional newspaper.

teaser - An eye-catching graphic element on page one to appeal to readers.

tracking - The overall space between letters within words. This differs from kerning, where specific pairs of letters are positioned.

typeface - The characters in one family, across all sizes, weights, and styles. Also known as a face. (ex: New Brunswick, Times, Helvetica) Computer software now uses font as a synonym for typeface.

- U -

upstyle - A “book-style” headline with all major words capitlized. Also known as title case and proper case setting.

- V -

Velox - A special resin-coated paper used to reproduce photographs.

vertical justification - The process of adding spaces between paragraphs thereby aligning columns on a page. The number of lines of text in each column may not be equal.

- W -

watermark - A faint impression on a sheet of paper. Traditionally, water was used to stain cotton-weave paper. Today, watermarks are created using a light ink.

weight - (1) type: The thickness of a typeface. The standard scale range is ultralight, light, book, medium, demibold, bold, heavy, ultra bold, and ultra heavy. (2) printing: The “bond” of a paper stock. see bond

- X -

x-height - The height of the average lowercase letter in a specifically sized font, usually equal to the height, in points, of the lowercase letter x.

- Y -

yelling - Type set in all caps. Considered difficult to read.

- Z -

Zapf, Hermann - Typographer.