LOGO DESIGN & GRAPHIC DESIGN GLOSSARY

We want to provide you with the most comprehensive information about the concepts related to logos and graphic design.

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Pantone matching system: The Pantone matching system is used for specifying and blending match colors. It provides designers with swatches of over 700 colors and gives printers the recipes for making those colors.

Pasteup: the process of preparing mechanicals -- in traditional publishing, positioning and pasting type and graphics on a board (and overlays). In desktop publishing, page-assembly software enables the user to do electronic pasteup.

Pica: a measurement used in typography for column widths and other space specifications in a page layout. There are 12 points in a pica, and approximately 6 picas to an inch.

Pixel (picture element): the smallest unit that a device can address. Most often refers to display monitors, a pixel being the smallest spot of phosphor that can be lit up on the screen.

PMS (Pantone Matching System): a standard color-matching system used by printers and graphic designers for inks, papers, and other materials. A PMS color is a standard color defined by percentage mixtures of different primary inks.

PNGPortable Network Graphics format: PNG (usually pronounced "ping"), is used for lossless compression. The PNG format displays images without jagged edges while keeping file sizes relatively small, making them popular on the web. PNG files are however generally larger than GIF files.

Point: a measurement used in typography for type size, leading, and other space specifications in a page layout. There are 12 points in a pica, and approximately 70 points to an inch.

Posterization: for a halftone, the reduction of the number of gray scales to produce a high-contrast image.

 

Printer font: high-resolution bitmaps or font outline masters used for the actual laying down of the characters on the printed page, as opposed to display on the screen.

 

Process color separation: in commercial printing, used for reproduction of color photographs. The various hues are created by superimposition of halftone dots of the process colors: cyan (a greenish blue), magenta (a purplish red), yellow, and black.

Proportionally spaced type: a typeface in which the set width (horizontal space) of characters is variable, depending on the shape of the character itself and the characters surrounding it.

Pull quote: a brief phrase (not necessarily an actual quotation) from the body text, enlarged and set off from the text with rules, a box, and/or a screen. It is from a part of the text set previously, and is set in the middle of a paragraph, to add emphasis and interest.

Punctuation block: in right-justified or right-aligned text, several consecutive lines that end with punctuation and make the right margin look uneven.