Good news! You’ve just received the first round of design concepts from your design partner. You open the first page and see words like “mockup”, “hierarchy”, “typography” and other terms you’re unfamiliar with. Suddenly you’re slightly overwhelmed or not 100% sure what you’re looking at. Understanding basic design terms is important for many reasons including bridging the gap between initial deliverable and feedback your team has for your designer.

Here is a quick list of basic design terms you should know – 

Typography – Typography describes the way in which letters and text are arranged.

Serif – A delicate stroke on the end of a letter stem. Serif fonts are typically used in more traditional brands with a formal or elegant aesthetic.

Sans serif – Is the complete opposite, a letter without a wispy ending. Sans serif fonts are perfect for more modern and playful brands.

Hierarchy – Typography hierarchy is used in reference to how fonts are organized. Organizing text by hierarchy helps our brains process information by arranging text in an easy to process way. It is also a helpful way to adjust the layout of larger chunks of text to be more visually appealing.

Lorum Ipsum – Placeholder text used to show what text in a document will look like when official copy hasn’t been established.

Color Palette – A combination of colors used consistently throughout a brand.

RGB – Red, Green, and Blue – RGB colors are used in digital spaces such as screens, monitors, scanners, etc.

CMYK – Cyan, Magenta, Yellow, and Key (aka Black) – Colors used for printing purposes.

Warm Tones – Think about the colors in first half of the rainbow, or the warm colors of a sunset… Reds, Oranges, Yellows, and Pinks.

Cool Tones – Cool tones are the last half of the rainbow. So… Blues, Greens, and Purples

Gradient – Subtle transition from one color to the next. Should be used parallel to your brand color palette. Take a look at the gradient options we developed for Sunnland Architects below.

Mock-up – A visual representation of what the design (often a logo) will look like using a real-world example (cell phone screen, stationary, signage, etc.)

Stock images – Professional high-resolution photographs available (free or purchase) for public use. Two things to be careful of when it comes to stock images. First, use images that align with your brand aesthetic and overall brand messaging. Second, make sure you know the usage rights of your imagemeaning you may need to pay for images unless you are able to verify that they are completely royalty free. For royalty free images, we highly recommend Unsplash.com!

HTML – Coding used to convert designs for webpages and other applications. Basically, it’s specific language that tells various platforms (websites, email providers, etc.) how to use your design. Here’s an example of a custom HTML email template we had coded for a client. The design was coded to be used on Mailchimp.com

Recap:

Walking through a rebrand or designing marketing materials can be overwhelming. Understanding these basic terms will help your marketing team clearly communicate expectations and feedback with the design firm you’re working with. If you’re considering a rebrand and not sure where to begin, we recommend taking a look at this article for guidance - “Should I Rebrand my Company?” or Branding Tips for Beginners.