Glossary of graphic design terminology and dictionary of creative concepts, pre-press, font styles, desktop publishing, typography and web design terms.

Graphic design glossary, definitions and dictionary of terms.

A reference guide and resource for design students, researchers and creative professionals wishing to check up on unfamiliar terms.

These glossaries aim to cut through the jargon to bring you accurate definitions, explanations and examples of common design terms and concepts.

To help you find the best definitions, we have divided these resources up into several industry related dictionaries and glossaries. However, graphic design, pre-press and web design terminology are all relative terms, with a huge amount of overlap.

Some terms are as much at home in the fonts and typography section as they are in the creative concepts glossary, or in the design software glossary.

In much the same way, the divisions between printing technology definitions and color theory and pre-press terminology are often very slight, or even overlap. With this in mind, please feel free to make use of the design glossary search function.

If you are researching for a summary of graphic design terminology, or just a definition, you may also want to have a look at our descriptions of design job titles, or our article entitled 'What is graphic design?'.

Please also, feel free to link to any part of this glossary or email the links to a friend or colleague. We also don't mind you quoting from one or two of these definitions, for a piece of research, or an article. However, if you want to reuse any of the descriptions in your web site, please ensure that you link back to this glossary.

Something missing? Something incorrect? Got a suggestion? - Tell us about it!

The graphic design glossary is an ongoing project. If there is a design term that you are looking for and we haven't included it, please Tell us about it! Also, if you feel that we've got a description wrong, or you have a suggestion for an addition to the glossary, we want to hear from you!