Knowing some commonly-used design/print terms will help you communicate your design and print needs more easily and effectively.
Vector
A collection of connected lines and curves that produce objects. Or, much simpler, you could enlarge vector graphics to be the size of King Kong without losing its quality. The common application for creating these graphics is Adobe Illustrator.
Raster
A collection of dots called pixels. Basically, the opposite of Vector. Unless you have a high resolution file, your image will lose its quality when it’s enlarged. If you had a small image and tried to double its size, it would become very grainy and pixelated. The most common application for creating raster graphics is Adobe Photoshop.
CMYK
Cool Mullets Yes Kindly. Just kidding, it stands for “Cyan, Magenta, Yellow and BlacK”. These 4 colors make up the color spectrum used for printing. Different percentages in each color can yield different colors. For example, 100% Yellow and 100% Magenta make red.
RGB
“Red, Green and Blue”. These 3 colors make up the color spectrum used for anything digital. The colors you view on your computer screen are in RGB. You cannot print in RGB, or the colors will be very dingy and dull and your bosses will be super unhappy with you. It’s very important to determine the use of your design when setting up a document as vibrant, RGB colors are difficult to reproduce on paper. This is important to keep in mind when looking at proofs from your designer. RGB and CMYK can look vastly different.
4/4
4 just stands for the number of colors your using on your document. 4 represents the 4 colors in CMYK discussed above. You better be paying attention! 4/0 would indicate the piece is only one sided, while 4/4 means it’s full color on both sides.
PMS & Spot colors
We’re not talking about your cranky girlfriend. PMS stands for Pantone Matching System. It allows designers to color match specific colors. If you have a very specific red you use for your company, you probably have a PMS color for it. It would say something like 856U or 856C, the letters standing for things like Coated and Uncoated, which just simply refer to the paper stock. The number is what’s important as it’s a very specific mixture of inks. When you have a PMS color, it should look the same on virtually everything you print. Spot colors are simply anything that is a non-standard ink printed on your piece.
Bleed
When the ink reaches the very edge of the paper and there is no white border. If you’ve ever printed something on your printer at home, you’ll see it automatically has a white border around it. You can only achieve bleed by extending the ink beyond the document’s trim so that when it’s cut down there is no border.
DPI
“Dots Per Inch.” How many dots are within a square inch to compose an image. The higher number of dots, the higher resolution your image is. Something that’s 300 dpi is considered high resolution and is used for print. Something that is 72 dpi is low resolution and is typically the dpi used for web.
Cover and Text stock
Cover stock paper is much thicker and more ridged, text stock is thinner and easier to fold. Both come in multiple weights and thickness. You’d want a cover stock for the front of a magazine, but a text stock for the inside pages.
Die Cut
A specialty printing technique that cuts custom-designed shapes into one or many sheets of paper.
Matte & Gloss finish
Gloss is a highly reflective clear finish applied to the paper. You cannot write on it. Matte finish is a clear finish with little or no reflection. Did you know Flyers Direct automatically applies a gloss finish to one side of all standard print jobs?! Pretty cool stuff.
I could go on for quite some time with more terms, but these are some of the most common ones. And you know this, man!








