Page Layout and Design Glossary

AA
AAs or Author's Alterations are changes made to projects...

Acknowledgment
The acknowledgment is part of a book's front matter...

Additive Primaries
Colors that add up to white light...

Adjacent Caps
A big letter off to the side...

Adjacent Colors
Color wheel neighbors...

Agate
A standard unit of measurement found primarily in newspaper publishing...

Agate Line
Still used as a unit of measure in advertising space in some newsletters...

Alignment
A principle of design...

Alley
The space between some columns...

Artwork
In desktop publishing artwork is the pictures but sometimes it's the text too when we're talking about camera-ready artwork.

Asymmetrical
Not out of balance, but not perfect mirror images...

Balance
principle of design

Bleed
When any image or element on a page touches the edge of the page leaving no margin...

Block Style
Business letter formatting...

Blurb
One or more lines of text found between the headline and the body of the article...

Body Copy
The main text found in publications we read...

Booklet
A little book or brochure or catalog...

Border
A decorative frame...

Brainstorming
Thinking up ways to do things...

Busy
Too much can be too busy...

Bottom Out
A type of text alignment...

Byline
Identifies the author of a piece of writing...

Calendar
Countdown the days, weeks, months, or years with a calendar you create yourself.

Call Out
graphics and page layout component

Caption
graphics and page layout component

Center Marks
layout and printing term

Clashing Colors
Opposites that attract attention...

Clipping Paths
A way to ditch the background (and other stuff)...

Collaterals
Support materials for sales, marketing, and promotion...

Colophon
It's the technical specs of a book or magazine...

Column
Vertical page layout arrangement for text, images...

Column Dividers (Downrules)
layout term

Column Guides
page layout tool

Comp, Composite, Comprehensive
layout and printing term

Consistency
Uniform use of fonts, colors, alignment, and more...

Continuation Head
The headline after the jump...

Complementary Colors
Colors that complete one another...

Computer Crafting (Creative Printing)
desktop publishing term

Contrast
One of the principles of design...

Contrasting Colors
Colors that might clash or compliment can contrast...

Corner Marks (Crop Marks)
layout and printing term

Coupon
Voucher for saving money...

Creative Printing
desktop publishing term

Creep
layout and printing term

Creep Allowance
layout and printing term

Crop Marks
layout and printing term

Crop, Cropping
layout and printing term

Desktop Publisher
Someone who does desktop publishing...

Deck
One or more lines of text found between the headline and the body of the article...

Deck
page layout component

Desktop Publishing
The page layout process...

Dropped Caps
Big letters dropped into a hole in a paragraph of text...

Downrule
layout and graphics term

End Sign
page layout component

Emphasis
Creating a focal point...

Flush
A type of alignment...

Footer
Info at the bottom of the page...

FPO - For Position Only
A type of placeholder...

Frame (Border)
page layout component

Gestalt
How the sum of the whole is greater than the parts...

Graphic Design
It's visual communication...

Gray Text
It's not just a color...

Greeking
layout and type term

Grid
Invisible lines of support...

Guides
page layout tool

Gutter Jump
Text or images that cross the gutter...

Gutter
Where two pages meet in the middle...

Hanging Punctuation
Putting punctuation outside the text alignment...

Header
Where you sometimes find page numbers at the top of a page...

Initial Caps
The first letter in a paragraph, enhanced...

Kicker
Text that kicks you into noticing it...

Jumpline
Go here, you came from there...

Lorem Ipsum
Lorem ipsum dolor placeholder text...

Magnification (Zoom)
page layout tool

Margin Guides
Dotted lines that represent the page margins of a document...

Margins
Usually empty space around the edges of the page...

Master Guides
Non-printing guides on master pages...

Masthead
page layout component

Mood Board
Prior to thumbnails, part of the design process...

Page Layout
Doing desktop publishing...

Mug Shots
Pictures of people focusing on the head...

Nameplate
Where you put the name of the newsletter...

Nameplate
page layout component

Pica
Unit of measurement sometimes used in page layout...

Proximity
Also known as unity...

Signposting
Something to get your attention...

Spread
Closing color gaps or a pair of pages...

Book Jacket
Wraps around a book...

Pull-Quote
A specially formatted quote, pulled from a story...

Raised Caps
A bigger letter that rises up above the text (not dropped into it)...

Recto
page layout term

Repetition
Repeat a font style, a color, a placement...

Rule
It's a graphic divider...

Rule of Thumb
Better than a guess...

Ruler Guides
Non-printing guidelines that assist in precise placement of elements...

Running Headline
Headline or title that runs across the top of the page...

Text Composition
Arranging and formatting copy...

Standing Elements
Elements that appear on all pages...

Symmetrical
Type of balance that is visually the same side to side or top to bottom...

Template
page layout

Text Feathering
Forcing bottom alignment...

Type Composition (Text Composition)
Arranging and formatting copy...

Tombstoning
Heads that line up horizontally in a multi-column layout...

Thumbnail
Small preview versions of images, sketches...

Trim (Crop)
graphics and layout and printing term

Verso
page layout term

Vertical Justification
Aligning text...

Web Design
design and electronic publishing term

White Space
White space is the absence of text and graphics...

Zine
A self-published specialty magazine or fanzine...

Zoom
page layout tool

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