People within the Graphic Design/Web Design industry like to use complex terminology, acronyms and ‘buzz words’. This may be something to do with creativity, but is confusing nonetheless. At York Graphic Designers we don’t like to confuse our clients, always prefering to use laymans terms and plain English. Unfortunately a lot of this jargon and terminology is now the industry standard and its use unavoidable, which is why we have produced this handy guide.

(if there is anything that you can’t find, just send us an email and we’ll answer you query and update the list).

Graphic Design and Print

A Sizes – The standard paper sizes used by the print industry in the UK.

Artwork (A/W) – Finished composition of typography, graphics and photographs which is used to produce the hard copy print.

Authors Alterations (AA), Alts – Alterations/corrections made by the client after the proofing process

B Sizes – Standard paper sizes. Less commonly used than A Sizes , these are normally used for large print jobs such as posters.

Bitmap (BMP) – Bitmaps or raster graphics as they are also known, are resolution dependent image files. When the dimensions of a bitmap/raster graphic are increased they quality of the image decreases.

Bleed – Part of the artwork that extends beyond the crop marks which is trimmed of after the job is printed. This is to ensure that all required artwork is printed to the very edge of the paper/stock.

CMYK – The acronym for full colour printing, also referred to as four colour process printing. CYMK refers to the four colours of ink used: Cyan, Yellow, Magenta and Black.

Crop Marks – These are small lines that indicate where the job should be cut. These are used to help printers register the job (ensure all 4 plates are positioned correctly) and show where bleeds needs to be trimmed off.

Desktop Publishing (DTP) – The process of creating artwork on a computer. This term now tends to refer to less professional design, produced by non skilled people on home computers.

Digital Printing – A form of printing that does not require the use of printing plates. This is an ideal solution for short print runs.

Double Page Spread (DPS) – Two printed pages that face each other.

DPI (Dots Per Inch) – Indicates the resolution (quality) of bitmap images/graphics. The higher the DPI, the better quality the image/graphic. The standard resolution used for print is 300dpi. 72dpi is used for graphics/images displayed on the internet.

EPS (Encapsulated Postscript File) – A file format that is used predominantly in the printing industry. EPS is now being used less and less within the print industry, with PDF becoming the preferred file format.

Finishing – The term given to all the processes a job goes through after it has been printed (i.e. guillotining, binding).

Folio – The pages numbers that appear at the bottom or top of a page.

Font – Letters, numbers and symbols that are a defined by size and style. e.g. Times is a typeface, whilst Times Bold 12pt is a font.

Four Colour Process – The method of printing full colour by splitting the artwork to 4 colours, CMYK (cyan, magenta, yellow and black). Each colour is output onto a separate plate. Reproduction of the original artwork is achieved by printing the four colours on top of each other.

FTP (File Transfer Protocol) – A method for transfering files to and from internet servers.

GSM (Grammes Per Square Metre) – A standard unit of measurement within the print industry, used to measure paper weight.

JPEG (Joint Photographic Experts Group) – A compressed file format that is most commonly used for images on the internet or transferring files via email. This file format is not usually used in printing as the compression applied to the image reduces the quality of the image.

Laminate – A transparent plastic coating added to printed material to give protection. This can be a gloss or matt surface

Lithography (Litho) – A printing process that uses plates to transfer (offset) an inked image to a rubber blanket. The inked areas are then picked up by the paper/stock.

Newsprint – Low quality paper that is used to print newspapers.

Offset Printing (Offset Lithography) – The most widely used commercial printing method. Ink is offset from a printing plate to a rubber roller and then to the paper/stock.

Pantone Machine System (PMS) – The international system of defining colours for printing.

PDF (Portable Document Format) – A file format used to combine a layout of images and text into one file. PDF’s are very versatile and are used for transferring artwork over the internet, and are now becoming the printing industry standard file format, to deliver finished artwork to printers.

Process Colours – The for colours that are combined to produce full colour printing. See CMYK.

Proof – A sample of work that is sent to the client to be checked for errors. This can be sent in either paper form, or emailed as a PDF.

Registration – The alignment of different coloured inks applied to paper.

Resolution – The quality of an image and how well it reproduces when printed.

RGB – RGB (Red, Green, Blue) are the colours used by computer monitors to display colour images on screen. Normally used to display web images, RGB images are not used in the print process.

Sign Off – When a client has approved the proof, this called sign off, which is the stage the final artwork is passed to the printer.

Spot Colour (Special Colour) – Colours that can’t be made up using the four process colours. Spot colours are often used by companies to ensure their branding and marketing materials are consistent. Spot colours are picked from a pantone swatch book, which contain exact examples of the colours.

TIFF (Tagged Image File Format) – A bitmap file format that which stores images using lossless compression.

Typeface – The name given to a family of fonts. e.g. The typeface Times contains the fonts Times bold and times italic.

Typography – The visual look of text in a layout.

Typo – A mistake within the copy of a layout.

Vector Graphics – Vector graphics are mathematically defined shapes which can be rescaled to any size without any loss of quality.

People within the Graphic Design/Web Design industry like to use complex terminology, acronyms and ‘buzz words’. This may be something to do with creativity, but is confusing nonetheless. Below is a handy guide we have created explaining the meanings of the most commonly used terms and acronyms.

.htaccess – The .htaccess file is a configuration file which is used on Apache based web servers to control many features of the server.

301 Redirects – 301 redirects are used to permanently move a site to a new location.

404 Error – A 404 error is shown when a web page can’t be found. This usually occurs if the web page has moved or if the page name has been changed.

Adwords (Google) – Google AdWords is Google’s main advertising product and main source of revenue. AdWords offers pay-per-click (PPC) advertising to customers who are prepared to pay for a high position on their search engine results pages (SERPs).

Algorithm – A programme used by search engines to decide the order of websites on their search engine results pages (SERPs). Algorithms are constantly evolving meaning Search Engine Optimisation on a website should constantly reviewed.

Alt Text – A description that is added to photographs on web pages to aid with Search Engine Optimisation (SEO).

Analytics – A programme that is used to view data about a website such as the most popular keywords, pages and daily traffic visiting your site.

Anchor Text – This is the text that is used to link to another web page.

Backlink – A link to a page on your website from another website. This is also known as an incoming link or an inbound link. Having lots of backlinks is great way to increase your page rank with search engines, and how much prominence they give to your site on the search engine results pages (SERPs).

Bing – Microsofts search engine.

Black Hat SEO – Unethical techniques used to achieve a higher position on search engines. Search engines have measures in place to spot Black Hat SEO and heavily punish those partaking in such techniques.

Bounce Rate – The percentage of users that visit your website and leave without visiting further pages.

Broken Link – A link to a webpage that does not work. These usually result in returning 404 errors.

Browser – An application use to browse the internet. The big four browsers are Firefox, Google Chrome, Safari and Internet Explorer. For a better experience browsing the web we suggest not using Internet Explorer.

Cache – A copy of web page stored by a search engine after completing a crawl. Web browsers also store caches of pages you have previously visited.

Chrome – Google’s web browser.

Content – The text displayed on a web page.

Content Management Systems (CMS) – A system used to administer a website online enabling the user to update text and photographs. Examples of popular Content Management Systems are WordPress and Joomla.

Cookie – A data file used by web browsers to store information and enhance a users experience of browsing specific sites.

CPC (Cost Per Click) – The amount a user pays Google for a click through to their website. This amount varies depending how prominent a company wants to be on Google’s search engine results pages (SERPs).

Crawl Rate – How often a search engine indexes the content of a website.

CSS (Cascading Style Sheets) – A way of styling elements on a website such as text size and colour. Using CSS speeds up how quickly a browser renders a web page.

Database – Some websites use databases to build dynamic web pages. If any information stored on the database changes, the web page connected to the database changes.

DNS (Domain Name System) – The Domain Name System translates a domain name (www.example.co.uk) into IP an address. This enables browsers to display a website when a user clicks on www.example.co.uk by looking up the IP address of the server where all the content for www.example.co.uk is stored.

Domain Name – The name given to identify a website, sometimes referred to as a URL. For example our domain name is www.yorkgraphicdesigners.co.uk.

Duplicate Content – Content that has been copied from another website.

E Commerce Website – A website that enables a user to purchase items via the internet.

External Link – A link that takes the user from one website to another.

Favicon – A shortcut icon that is displayed next to a websites name when bookmarked by a user.

Firefox – A web browser from a company called Mozilla. In our opinion this is the best browser.

Flash – A programme used to create animations and transitions displayed on websites. Websites can be solely created in Flash although we do not recommend this as there are issues with poor search engine optimisation.

FTP (File Transfer Protocol) – A way of transferring files and data via the internet.

Google – A search engine and one of the most worlds successful companies. In our opinion the original and still the best.

Googlebot – A virtual robot from Google that crawls the internet and determines the ranking of websites.

Google Places – Lists local businesses next to map to users who perform a search for businesses in a specific are. Any business with a website can create a Google places listing for free.

Hosting – A service offered which enables space to be bought to store website pages on a web server, which enables the pages to be viewed online.

HTML (HyperText Markup Language) – The language used to construct websites.

HTML 5 (HyperText Markup Language 5) – This is the next generation of HTML.

HTTP (HyperText Transfer Protocol) – The process of transferring data stored on a web server to a browser.

Inbound Links – These are links from pages on external sites that link through to your site. These are also referred to as backlinks and are a key part in achieving a high website ranking.

Indexed Pages – The pages on a website that have been indexed by a search engine.

Internal Links – A link from one page to another on the same website.

Internet Explorer – The worst web browser, FACT!

IP Address (Internet Protocol Address) – A unique number that every device connected to the internet is assigned.

ISP (Internet Service Provider) – A company that providers subscribed users with access to the internet.

Javascript – A programming language that is used to create dynamic features on websites and increase a users interactivity.

Joomla – A free open source content management system (CMS) that is used to publish content on the internet.

Keywords – Words and phrases that are entered into a search engine in order to find information.

Keyword Density – The percentage of keywords and phrases that appear on a web page.

Link – A clickable element that takes a user to a different webpage or certain area of the current page.

Link building – The process of building backlinks to a website.

Linux – A free open source computer operating system.

Magento – An open source eCommerce content management system (CMS).

Meta Tags – Meta tags are a very important part of search engine optimisation (SEO). They consist of Tile, Description and Keywords and are inserted between the tags on a website.

MySQL – An open source Relational Database Management System (RDBMS) that allows the creation of relational databases on a web server.

Nav Bar – A collection of internal links at either top or side of a website that aids the users navigation throughout a website.

Opera – A popular web browser.

PageRank – A score given to a web page by Google to indicate its popularity and relevance. The score ranges from 0 – 10, with a PageRank of 10 being the best.

Permalink – A a URL that points to a specific blog post after it has passed from the front page to the archives.

PHP: Hypertext Preprocessor – A server side script language that is used to render dynamic web pages.

PPC – A form of online advertising where the advertiser is charged when a user clicks on their advert.

Reciprocal Links – A link that goes in both directions between two websites.

Robots.txt – A file that is uploaded to a websites server that stops search engines from indexing certain pages of a website.

Safari – Apples search engine that comes as standard on all Apple internet enabled devices.

Search Engine – A tool used to find specific information on the internet.

Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) – The term given to the process of improving a websites visibility organically on search engines such as Google, Yahoo and Bing.

SMTP (Simple Mail Transfer Protocol) – An internet standard for electronic mail (e-mail) transmission.

SPAM – Unsolicited email messages.

Site Map – A page that contains a simplified collection of links on your website to aid search engines crawl the site.

Spider –

Ever fancied taking a boat ride down the Amazon River? Yes I hear you say. Well now you can, all from the comfort of your home or office via Google Street view.
User’s can take a virtual trip through the Amazon Rainforest on the Rio Negro thanks to a project recently completed by Google and the Amazonas Sustainable Foundation (FAS). Google has also captured the trails of Tumbira, enabling users to take a look at the largest community in the Reserve. Over 50,000 photographs were taken and painstakingly stitched together to create the 360-degree panoramic views.

View Larger Map

First things first

So you are thinking of having a website created? If your not familiar with the workings of the internet this can seem a daunting task which throws up many questions. We have created this guide to answer many of the most commonly asked questions in order to make your project run as smoothly as possible.

What’s in a name?

If your business is a new venture you may want to consider choosing a company name that explains what you do and your location. By choosing a company name that explains the services provided by your business and its location as your domain name (www.yorkpainters.co.uk for example) you are giving yourself a head start with regards to search engine optimisation and how Google will rank your website. To check if a domain name is available click here to perform a domain name registration check. If you require further advice on this matter or are considering York Graphic Designers for your website design project, please contact us on 07821 074637 or email us via the contact form as it may be easier for us to register the domain for you.

If your business is not a new venture and your company is called ABC Painters for example, there is nothing to stop you using a domain name such as www.yorkpainters.co.uk (if available) in order to aid with search engine optimisation.

Content is king

Having unique, informative and relevant content about your business and the services you provide is essential when trying to achieve a high position on the search engine results pages (SERPs). We can help with the writing of content, but we recommend you create the bulk of this information yourself as only you fully know your industry sector and the services you provide. This is probably the most time consuming part of the website design process for the client, but getting it right is certainly worth the effort. DON’T BE TEMPTED TO COPY CONTENT FROM ANOTHER WEBSITE as search engines WILL pick up that you have plagiarised a competitors site, and penalise your domain by dropping it down the SERPs or even removing it entirely. This penalty can be very hard to overturn, SO DON’T DO IT!

Keywords and search phrases

When writing content for the internet, it is best to start by brain storming some keywords and search phrases that you think people will use to find your company online. Asking people who are not involved in your industry the search terms they would use to find your company online, is an effective way of putting yourself in the position of a potential customer. After all, you know your industry inside out, but potential customers may not know the correct terminology and therefore try to find your business using terms which you may not have considered. Once you have established a list of keywords, write your content by incorporating these keywords throughout the various pages on your site. Don’t be tempted to over fill your copy with these keywords, as search engines conduct keyword density checks to ensure the content is written in a natural style that provides useful information to the reader.

What goes up, could come down

Continually adding new content is a great way of helping your website to reach a higher ranking on search engines. Achieving a high position on Google for your business is the first goal you should set. It may take anywhere from 2 weeks to 1 year for your website to settle into its place within the search engine results pages, and when it does there is no guarantee that it will stay there. For your website to increase it’s position, another website has to loose theirs. The best way to ensure that you stay above the competition is by adding new, fresh content. This content could be special offers and promotions from your company, or articles about the latest goings on in your industry displayed on a latest news or blog page.

For further information please contact us on 07821 074637 or send a message via the contact page.

After being unhappy with the work produced by another design agency, Dryfix contacted York Graphic Designers to see if we could create the artwork for their A4 presentation folders.

The folders were to contain the reports and surveys that Dryfix send out to potential customers. Using their corporate colours of red, white and grey, we produced a design that went down very will with the guys at Dryfix. As the Dryfix logo contains a tick, we hit upon the idea of using this tick as the interior flap of the folder which would house the loose pages of the survey. Setting this and the die-cutting form involved a bit of head scratching as the 4 colour press we were using would only accept a certain paper size. We like a challenge and after completing a few calculations managed to get it all to fit with just 2mm to spare.

We have just completed a web store for York based Scandinavian children’s and baby clothes retailer, Tarka Clothing. Tarka Clothing specialise in selling bright and funky Scandinavian children’s clothes from suppliers such as Smafolk, Urban Elk, Blafre and Plastisock.

When designing the website we opted for a nice clean look with plenty of white space to really show off the bright and colourful products. We categorised the products by type and brand to make navigation as easy as possible for the user.

Visit www.tarkaclothing.co.uk to see the site in action.

Pinnacleplus Consulting are specialists in the FMCG consulting sector and took advantage of our Business Start-Up package to get their new company noticed. The Business Start-Up package is excellent value for new companies wanting a bespoke corporate identity and web presence, consisting of a bespoke logo, 5 page website and 500 deluxe business cards all for only £799 including VAT.

We created several concept designs for the logo, combining various elements from the concepts to produce the finished design.

We carried the colour scheme through the website design and opted for a minimal, clean design with plenty of white space to make it easy for the user to digest the information.

If you would like more information about Business Start-Up package call Mark on 07821 074637 or fill in the form on our contact page for a prompt reply.

We have just completed a logo and website design project for Yorkshire school, The Bilbrough Country Classroom. Set in 25 acres of beautiful North Yorkshire Countryside, the Bilbrough Country Classroom specialise in providing a caring and supportive learning environment for students with emotional and or behavioural issues.

As well as conventional schooling techniques, students are given the responsibility of caring for the various animals which are kept at the Country Classroom, and it is this unique opportunity which helps the students from becoming disaffected, and restore a a sense of trust between adults and children.

We created a design that focused on the location of the Bilbrough Country Classroom and how it is utilised as a vast and valuable resource to help the students develop. We opted for a bright, informal, fun design to reflect the feedback we gained from students who currently attend the Bilbrough Country Classroom.

The brief for the website was to create a site that was easy to navigate, engaging, and had a content management system that members of staff from the Bilbrough Country Classroom could use to update the website with news articles, which was achieved by running the site on WordPress. We continued the branding developed for the logo through the website design, and created a website that appealed to both staff and students.

After the successful launch of the Signature Designs website, we have just produced some A5 doubled sided leaflets to help promote the Yorkshire based monogram and jewellery designers.

Using a limited colour palette as per the website and professional photographs taken by Nigel Murgatroyd, we designed an elegant leaflet which was printed on a premium 350gsm board and finished with a gloss laminate to reflect the high quality of the monograms and jewellery which Signature Designs create.

The correct use of colour in design can be a very effective way to create different moods and emotions. ‘The right’ colour scheme can be the most powerful element within a design when used correctly.

The way in which people perceive colours is very subjective, and can vary from person to person. What evokes a reaction or feeling in one one person, may evoke a totally different reaction in someone else depending on factors such as life experience, personal preference and cultural background. For years, designers have studied colour theory and its psychological effects in order to help them effectively create certain moods or feelings about the products or services they are promoting. Creating the right colour palette should always be the first part in the design process, as using appropriate colours can help re-enforce the brand message.

What do colours mean?

Listed below are the meanings that are often associated with certain colours.

Black – Black can convey power, authority, and strength. It is a colour that does not fall in or out of fashion. It can used effectively in design to emphasize other colours such as red, yellow or white.

White – White represents purity, and goodness. It can also represent coldness and winter. It is often used a background colour to emphasize text, or to create a clean, minimalist design.

Red – Red is a very effective colour for attracting attention. Red traffic lights tell us to stop. Red break lights on a car tell us to slow down and seeing red blood means we are injured. On the other hand red is the colour of love, making red a very versatile and popular colour.

Orange – Our favourite colour and the colour of our logo! Orange conveys warmth, energy and creativity.

Yellow – Yellow is the colour of sunshine and is associated with joy, happiness and energy. It is also a colour that is used in signs and nature to symbolise danger. Like red, it is a versatile colour that can have different meanings dependent on the context.

Blue – Blue is regarded as a safe colour as most of moods it evokes are positive. Blue represents reliability, cleanliness, trust and is associated with tranquility and calmness. Dark blue is associated with intelligence, reassurance and trust and is a preferred colour for large corporations. It can also represent depression (e.g. feeling blue).

Green – Green symbolises growth, health and luck. Green is directly associated with nature and is widely used to promote evironmentally friendly products.

Purple – Purple is a colour that is often associated with royalty. It symbolises power, luxury and wealth. It is also associated with magic and mystery.