Michael Burbridge Ltd

Glossary of Common Design and Print Terms 

If you don't know your CMYK from your Pantones or thought a TIFF was something that only lovers have, then fear not. We've pulled together a glossary of common terms that you're likely to hear when talking to us.

A

AI :  Adobe Illustrator. The application we use for designing logos, icons and diagrams. All Illustrator files end with a .ai extension.

Acrobat: Acrobat is part of a set of applications developed by Adobe to create and view PDF (Portable Document Format) files. We use PDFs for proofing designs to our clients and often receive PDF from clients for printing.

B

B&W: Black and white. This will often refer to printing on 1 colour (black) onto white paper.

Bitmap Image (bmp): A graphic image stored as a specific pattern of dots, or pixels. Web graphics are bitmap images. Bitmap images are also known as raster images. Common types of bitmap graphics are GIF, JPEG, Photoshop, PCX, TIFF, Microsoft Paint, PNG, and TGA. 

Blanket: On a printing press, the synthetic rubber mat used to transfer (or "offset") an image from a metal plate to the paper. It is the use of a blanket that gives offset printing its name.

Bleed: A printed element or type that extends to the very edge of the paper. Bleed is achieved by actually printing the image beyond the edge of the page size onto a larger sized sheet, then trimming the sheet to the finished size.

Brand: A unique and identifiable symbol, association, name or trademark which seeks to differentiate competing products or services. The brand gives rise to expectations in the consumer of the experience they will have of the product or service.

C

CMYK: Cyan, Magenta, Yellow and Black (K). The four subtractive colours, also called processed colors, that are used in four-colour printing. The four colours can combine to create most other colours. A CMYK 'breakdown' refers to the percentage of each colour within a CMYK colour mix.

Coated Paper: Paper with a coating that improves reflectivity and ink. Common coatings are Gloss and Matt or Silk. 

Collating: arranging of printed sheets into the desired sequence.

Color Separation: The process of creating separate plates for each colour of ink, i.e.: cyan, magenta, yellow, and black, that will be  combined to create different colours see CMYK.

Crop: In layout and imaging applications, to cut away a portion of an image.

Crop Marks: Marks as an oversized printed sheet that tell the Guillotine Operator where to trim the sheet. Crop Marks should never touch each other and should always be at least 3mm outside the image area.

D

Digital Proof: A colour proof produced using our Epson 7800 Pro printer. We will often insist that our clients approve a digital proof of a design before we proceed with printing.

Dot Gain: An increase in the size of halftone dots that occurs when paper absorbs the ink beyond the intended boundaries.Dot-gain usually happens with lower-quality papers such as newsprint.

DPI: Dots Per Inch. Unit of measurement used to describe the resolution of Bitmap image (JPEG, TIFF etc). The most common resolution used for website graphics is 72dpi, often referred to as Lo-Res. However for printing purposes, we require 300dpi images to achieve the best results and highest definition. These images will often be referred to as Hi-Res.

Duplex: A capability of printers and copiers that allows printing on both sides of a sheet of paper.

Duotone: An image reproduced with a mix of two colors, often black and a spot Pantone colour.

E

EPS: Encapsulated PostScript, a known file format developed by Adobe and used to transfer PostScript information from one program to another. It is a vector format (not bitmap), thus inherently scalable and moderately device independent. We would commonly use Adobe Illustrator for creating EPS files.

F

Four-Colour: (also full-colour) Also called four-colour or process colour. See CMYK.

FTP: Short for File Transfer Protocol, the protocol for exchanging files over the Internet.
FTP is most commonly used to download a file from a server using the Internet or to upload a file to a server (e.g., uploading a Web page file to a server). We recommend using the following software to upload your files to our server. For Mac OS9: Fetch or for Mac OSX: Transmit or Fetch. For Windows: WS_FTP or CuteFTP. Please refer to the application user guide for information on how to connect to an FTP server.

G

Grayscale: An optical pattern consisting of discrete steps or shades of grey between black and white. Black and white images are oftem printed from Greyscale originals.

Gripper Margin: The area at the edge of a sheet of paper where it is gripped by the press or printer and therefore cannot be printed on.

Gutter: The inner margins of facing pages in a publication. 6mm is a common gutter width.

H

Halftone: A reproduction of a continuous tone photograph or other piece of artwork in which it has been "screened",or converted into a series of dots of various sizes. When viewed by the naked eye, the dots merge to give the illusion of a continuous tone.

High Resolution: Any image that is proper resolution for printing, usually 300 dpi or more. Called hi-res for short.

I 

Imposition: The process of laying out pages on a large sheet of paper for printing on a press. 

Inkjet: Computer-generated ink droplets that apply ink through a small orifice to form characters; often used for purposes of personalization.

Inkjet printing:In digital printing, a plateless printing system that produces images directly on paper from digital data using streams of very fine drops of dyes which are controlled by digital signals to produce images on paper.

 J

JPEG: A format for compressed graphic images which uses a “lossy” (loss of image information) compression algorithm. Images can be compressed for maximum quality (very little loss of image information) or minimum quality (smaller file size, but image quality is sacrificed), and various levels of compression in-between. 

 K

A keyline is another term for a rule, line, or even a frame border, used in graphic design. Keylines can be set in many graphic design software applications to different widths, to be solid or dotted, or even with various patterns.

Kiss cut: A method of cutting through the face stock of pressure sensitive material but not cut through the liner.

 L

Lamination: The application of transparent plastic film, usually with a high-gloss finish, to the surface of printed matter to enhance its appearance and to increase it durability.

Laser Printer: A printer that works on the same principle as a photocopy machine, but instead of reflective light uses a laser beam to create the latent image on the photo-electrostatic media.

Lithographic printing: A process in which the printing and non-printing surface are on the same plane and the substrate makes contact with the whole surface. The printing part of the surface is treated to receive and transmit ink to the paper, usually via a blanket, the non-printing surface is treated to attract water and thus rejects inks from the ink roller, which touches the whole surface.

Logotype (or logo): The name of a company or product in a special design used as a trademark in advertising.

 M

Macintosh (MAC):  Computer developed by Apple Computers, first released in 1984. The Macintosh was one of the first computers to use a graphical user interface. Apple continues to produce many different models of Macintosh, as well as the iPod and iPhone.

Make-ready: the work associated with the set-up of printing equipment before running a job.

Mark Up: Instructions written usually on a "dummy" or annotated onto a PDF proof.

 N

Natural Color: Very light brown color of paper. May also be called antique, cream, ivory, off-white or mellow white.

Nonreproducing Blue: Light blue that does not record on graphic arts film, therefore may be used to preprint layout grids and write instructions on mechanicals. Also called blue pencil, drop-out blue, fade-out blue and nonrepro blue.

 O

Offset Printing: For high-volume reproduction‚ offset utilizes three rotating drums: a plate cylinder, a blanket cylinder, and an impression cylinder. The printing plate is wrapped around the plate cylinder, inked and dampened. The plate image is transferred, or offset, onto the blanket cylinder. Paper passes between the blanket cylinder and the impression cylinder, and the image is transferred onto the paper.

 P

Pantone/PMS (Pantone Matching System®): It is a solid color communication system based on the visual matching of individual, pre-mixed colors. It provides a series of books with thousands of precisely printed colors alongside printers' formulas for mixing those colors. It is used by artists and commercial printers to select, specify and match colors very precisely. Many logos are created with specific Pantone Colors that can be very closely reproduced.

PC: Personal Computer: Strictly speaking, this refers to the IBM PC, which is any IBM-manufactured personal computer made prior to the PS/2 Series. Usually PC refers to any personal computer compatible with IBMs. It is also used to refer to any personal computer.

PDF (Portable Document Format): A document-encoding process developed by Adobe that maintains page layout, fonts, and graphics and can include many other features such as hyperlinks. PDFs enable files to be viewed as they were created on a variety of computers, regardless of the program originally used to create them. PDF documents require (free) Adobe Acrobat Reader software.

Perfect Binding: a bookbinding method in which pages are glued rather than sewn to the cover. Used primarily for paperback books.

Pixel: Also called pel or picture element. The smallest graphic unit that can be displayed on the screen, usually a single-colored dot. Pel is abbreviated from picture element.

PNG (Portable Network Graphics): A digital file format, generally pronounced "ping", used for lossless compression and displaying images on the web. The advantages of PNG are that it supports images with millions of colors and produces background transparency without jagged edges. The disadvantages are that PNG images will not show up on older browsers, and still can be comparatively larger in file size than GIFs.

PostScript (.ps): A language designed for describing text and graphics, usually built into high-end output devices such as laser printers and typesetters. Display PostScript is the use of PostScript for the computer's own display (on a monitor).

Point: Typographic unit of measurement equal to 1/12 pica or 1/72 inch. The point size of a font is measured from the bottom of the descenders to the top of the ascenders. Points are always used to express type size and leading.

PPI (Pixels Per Inch): PPI specifies the resolution of an input device, such as a scanner, digital camera, or monitor. Web page resolution ranges from 72-96 pixels per inch. Print resolution is optimum at 300 pixels per inch.

Preflighting is a term used in the printing industry to describe the process of confirming that the digital files required for the printing process are all present, valid, correctly formatted, and of the desired type. The term originates from the pre-flight checklists used by pilots.

Process Colours: Black and three primary Colours-magenta (red), cyan (blue), and yellow- into which full-Colour artwork is separated before printing.

 Q

Quality: Subjective term relating to expectations by the customer, designer, printer and other professionals associated with a designed and/or printed job and whether the job meets those expectations.

Quotation: Price offered by a printer to produce a specific job.

 R

Resolution: The crispness of detail or fineness of grain in an image. Screen resolution is measured in pixels (for example, 640 x 350); printer resolution is measured in dpi (for example, 300 dpi). Resolution indicates the number of dots (or pixels) that make up an image on a screen or printer. The higher the resolution, the finer and smoother images can appear when displayed at a given size.

Resolution Dependent: Raster files (i.e.: Adobe Photoshop TIFF files). A resolution dependent file cannot be enlarged beyond its intended use without loss of image quality or resolution.

Resolution Independent: Vector files (i.e.: Adobe Illustrator® AI or EPS files). A resolution independent file can be enlarged or reduced to any scale without loss of image quality or resolution.

Reverse: White or light-colored image on a dark background, typically a white image on black background.

RGB (Red, Green, Blue): A standard way of specifying colors on a computer monitor. RGB stands for the three (additive) primary colors; that is, the primary colors when light is added together to produce the color. Red, yellow, and blue are the primary colors when ink is blended and put onto (white) paper. CYMK (Cyan, yellow, magenta, black) is the color model used for printing (this does correspond to the standard blue, yellow, red usage). An alternative model is saturation, hue, and luminance (this is the way television color is encoded. Computers sometimes use this model).

 S

Saddle Stitch: a binding process in which a pamphlet or booklet is stapled through the middle fold of its sheets using saddle wire.

Scaling: Reduction or enlargement of artwork, which can be proportional (most frequently) or disproportional. In desktop publishing, optimal scaling of bitmaps is reduction or enlargement that will avoid or reduce moire patterns.

Score: a pressed mark in a sheet of paper, usually a thick paper, to make folding cleaner and easier.

Screen (Tint): in graphic arts, a uniform dotted fill pattern, described in percentage (for example, 50 percent screen).

Spot Color: Any area of colour that is not printed using a CMYK process set; coloured areas reproduced using self-coloured inks, such as Pantone inks.

Stock: the paper or card which is to be printed on.

 T

TIFF (Tagged Image File Format): For digital gray-scale halftones, a device-independent graphics file format. TIFF files can be used on IBM/compatible or Macintosh computers, and may be output to PostScript printers.

Tint: an area of tone made by a pattern of dots, which lightens the apparent colour of the ink with which it is printed.

Trapping: In printing, the ability to print a wet ink film over previously printed ink. Dry trapping is printing wet ink over dry ink. Wet trapping is printing wet ink over previously wet ink. In prepress, refers to how much overprinting colours overlap to eliminate white lines between colours and printing.

Type Alignment: The distribution of white space in a line of type where the characters at their normal set width do not fill the entire line length exactly. Type maybe aligned left, right, centered, or right-justified.

Typeface: the set of characters created by a type designer, including uppercase and lowercase alphabetical characters, numbers, punctuation, and special characters. A single typeface contains many fonts, at different sizes and styles.

Type Families: A group of typefaces of the same basic design but with different weights and proportions.

 U

Uncoated Paper: Paper that has not been coated with clay. Also called offset paper. This paper is never slick or glossy. For example, most stationery (business cards, letterhead, and envelopes) is designed on uncoated paper.

Undercolor Removal: Technique of making color separations such that the amount of cyan, magenta and yellow ink is reduced in midtone and shadow areas while the amount of black is increased. Abbreviated UCR.

Universal Copyright Convention (UCC): A system to protect unique work from reproducing without knowledge from the originator. To qualify, one must register their work and publish a (c) indicating registration.

Unsharp Masking: Technique of adjusting dot size to make a halftone or separation appear sharper (in better focus) than the original photo or the first proof. Also called edge enhancement and peaking.

 V

Varnish: To apply oil, synthetic, spirit, cellulose or water varnish to printed matter by hand or machine to enhance its appearance or to increase its durability.

Vignette: Decorative design or illustration fade to white.

Vector (i.e.: Adobe Illustrator files): This is the preferred format for logos and clip art. A Vector image is a graphic that has been created in a drawing program, such as Adobe Illustrator). It uses paths to create polygons or lines and stores information mathematically. Vector art is resolution independent, which means that whether you enlarge or shrink the image, the output quality will be as high as you need it to be.

 W

Watermark: Translucent logo in paper created during manufacturing by slight embossing from a dandy roll while paper is still approximately 90 percent water.

Wrong Reading: An image that is backwards when compared to the original. Also called flopped and reverse reading.

 X

 Y

 Z