Graphic design in recent years has become a profession and area of great interest and utility used by many in a self-taught or training way. We see how visual and audiovisual media are the protagonists every day, becoming more and more attractive, eye-catching and fixing our minds with greater ease and speed. For this reason, I want to leave you a list of graphic design concepts that can help you move more fluently in this camp or , in addition to being concepts that are used very frequently in this profession.
I also think it is important to have them clear and at hand because:
Visual elements are becoming increasingly important on all platforms, especially now that everything or practically everything revolves around the digital world.
They improve and facilitate communication with the designer so that you can negotiate with him and make him understand what is wanted and what is needed. It is important that you familiarize yourself with these terms, since when working hand in hand with a designer, either as a colleague or a client, it is always key that there is good communication and that all parties understand what is being talked about. It is true that there are many technicalities and very very specific terminology that confuses, but it is always important to maintain it as much as possible, that is, call things or processes for what they are and clarify doubts together.
List of graphic design concepts that you should know
A key concept I would like to define, and one that tops the list of graphic design concepts , creativity, a term that could become very broad and abstract for many, but that although you may not believe it, all of us at some point in our lives have close to him and I would even dare to say that all of us, absolutely all of us have it in one way or another.
CREATIVITY
Creativity is the ability of every individual to create new ideas through associations or existing concepts, providing value and utility to achieve an end.
SKETCH
Sketch , sketch, sketch or draft, all synonyms used to talk about that drawing or representation of an idea that seeks to capture its basic features or guidelines , such as a logo, an illustration.
The benefits of the sketch are not only the freedom to capture in a crude way the first thing that is had in mind directly or schematically, but in turn, it is in the sketch where we find the richness of research and analysis. This serves as a guide for further development and from which aspects and details that give personality and warmth to the final result are rescued.
LOGO
It is the visual representation of the brand and with which we identify it. It gives you recognition and differentiation.
It is made up of typographic and / or graphic elements, the combination and composition of which must communicate a very clear and direct message.
By understanding how it is composed, we can take advantage of its graphic elements to define or expand the graphic extensions. And, being flexible, it allows readability and recognition in the different media, formats and platforms, such as its reduction for a mobile app.
TYPOGRAPHY
Another word on the list of graphic design concepts would be thAnother aspect that you should take into account term “typography.” The word comes from two Greek terms: “typos” which means stroke, mark or shape, and “graphic” which means quality of writing, so we can define typography as ” the art of designing letters”.
This is also the name given to the discipline that studies the graphic representation of them , taking care of everything related to symbols, numbers and letters for their correct construction and legibility.
The typographer Stanley Morison (1936) defined it as: “The art of arranging the printing material correctly, according to a specific purpose: that of placing the letters, distributing the space and organizing the type with a view to giving the reader the maximum help for the comprehension of the verbally written text ”.
But in short, and for what we want to explain without going into so much detail, typography is basically the style or appearance of the text to use in our content , which with its weights and sizes help to rank the information according to each type of support, information and need.
The types have a long history and classification, but the one we need at the moment is the Serif and Sans Serif classification.
The serif or serif typeface (Roman), are types of letters with serifs or terminals at their ends, generating contrasts and modulations. It can be said that the use of them gives a more formal appearance to the text. On the other hand, there are the fonts without serifs that lack said finials, terminals and contrasts, giving greater modernity and cleanliness to the text composition.
CONTRAST AND HIERARCHY
Concepts used especially when composing to highlight or highlight elements in an “organized” way, so that there is an order of importance or reading in them. This can be achieved in different ways, either through the color or size of the elements, as well as through different styles that can be applied to the texts, to give a few examples.
RESOLUTION
This term refers to or indicates the amount of detail that can be observed in an image or how sharp it can be. The higher the resolution, the better the image will look in terms of sharpness and visual information.
Being more specific, the resolution of an image is the number of pixels per inch it contains. This is expressed in PPP (dots per inch in Spanish) or DPI (dots per inch in English). The more pixels per inch the more information the image will contain, the more accurate it will be. For example, a resolution of 300 dpi means that the image is 300 pixels wide and 300 pixels high. Or in another case, when we have a low resolution, if the image is too large, a lot of quality will be lost.
In short, it is always necessary to be clear about the medium, whether printed or digital, and the format in which the graphic piece is needed, so that the final result is optimal for the medium and / or medium.
PIXEL
Another term on the list of graphic design concepts is the well-known pixel. The word comes from the acronym picture element , ‘ picture element ‘, and is the smallest element that is part of a digitally reproduced image.
VECTOR
They are lines that are generated to join one or more points through mathematical formulas and can be enlarged or reduced without losing quality. At the same time, they are completely editable, since you can change any of the points that form it and obtain any modification in them.
A tool widely used by creatives is Adobe Illustrator, since it is a vector program, that is, it works in vectors, and in it you can clearly see each of the nodes or vectors that make up the constructed or “vectorized” element.
JPG and PNG
A lossy image compression format used primarily for large digital and photographic (printed) images. This format does not allow transparencies so the image will always have a solid color background.
On the other hand, a PNG is an image compression format without loss of quality, perfect for images without a background, with texts, logos or vector graphics that will have better quality in this format than in JPG.
Normally this format is used or it is recommended to use when working on the web or digital platforms to maintain high quality.
OPACITY OR TRANSPARENCY
These two terms of graphic design concepts that can mean the same thing, refer to how translucent a photo or graphic element is . For example, an image with a high degree of transparency allows you to see what is behind it. Several of its uses are to generate overlap of elements, filters or tonality in photos, watermarks, etc
BlackBOARD
Blackboard or inspiration wall is a tool used to organize a series of elements that help us to visualize and then define what and how we want our logo, product, etc. to be. It is like a kind of prototype of the project to be carried out, to have a first approach to it.
It is usually composed of key words or phrases, typography, color palette, textures, shapes, abstract or figurative photographs. The idea is that each of these elements are justified and convey the concept or main idea to work on.
COLOR PALETTE
It is the set of colors or tones that are going to be used in a specific project.
The universe of color is quite wide and complex, so we can dedicate a complete article to it just talking about this topic. But I do want to leave you some concepts within this world that are important and that are often confused.
TONALITY
It is basically synonymous with color.
SATURATION
It is the intensity of the color , that is, if the color is softer or stronger, or more pure. For example, the more saturated an image is, the stronger all the tones that make it up will be.
BRIGHTNESS OR BRIGHTNESS
Indicates whether the color is dark or light , ranging from black to white.
Example: A color at 100% saturation will be at its highest purity at 100% brightness, and at 0% brightness it will be absolute black.
RGB / CMYK and PANTONE
The three are models or color systems , respectively, light color, spot colors and direct inks.
RGB
Red, green and blue (red, green and blue), the light colors used in monitors , cell phones and tablets, in short, in the digital medium.
CMYK
Cyan, Magenta, Yellow and Key (Cyan, Magenta, Yellow and Black) the pigment colors used in printed material.
PANTONE
“Pantone Matching System” is a standardized and universal color system , specially created to identify each tone precisely.
They are organized by group of colors and each one is numbered, in order to simplify the process of searching and using that tone in designs and prints.
We could continue expanding the list of graphic design concepts , but in order not to make this post infinite for now, we will leave it here, so I hope it will be useful and as always, you can write to us for any questions or comments, it will be a pleasure to read them.
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