Industry specific terms and definitions…

Glossary of Graphic and Media Terms

Click on the first letter for the word you are looking for below:

A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z #

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- A -

Assistant Engineer
Pertaining to a Sound Engineer who assisted on a project during the recording or tracking of a project.

ADDY
The award name for the American Advertising Federation (like: Grammy or Emmy but for advertising)

Angle
Approach the writer takes in writing the story.

Area of Dominant Influence (ADI)
Geographic area reached by radio stations

Audiovisuals (AV)
Graphic presentations that use sight and sound to enhance the understanding of a topic

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- B -

Back printing
The reverse side of a page or panel printed with additional information or images; the opposite side from the cover. (normally printed in black, but full color can be used.)

Biographer
Gives vital facts and history of a person

Bio or Biography
An account of someone's life written by someone else

Bleed
Extra image area printed around any cut edges of printing, allows for trimming after printing, without this a white edge line might show around all cut edges. (Fit to specific requirement of printer, normally 1/8")

B&W
An acronym for "Black and White". (For printing this means black ink in white paper)

Byline
Name of the reporter placed at the top or bottom of the article

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- C -

Cassette Panels - Cassette Extra Panels
Additional space added to a J-card with nearly the same surface area as the front cover panel appearing to the right of the cover when unfolded. One panel counted front and back as ONE. Up to a total of 6 additional panels can be added.

Clear Tray
A see-through plastic part of a jewel case that is inside the box and holds the CD itself in place by the center hole with a flexible set of short prongs. This part is snapped in and holds the "Tray Card" in place by pressing it against the bottom of the jewel box and is black plastic on most projects. This clear piece is used when the tray card contains back printing, which now shows through when the jewel case is opened.

CD Booklet Insert
An 8 panel or more insert for a Compact Disc which ends up 2 pages wide, stapled and folded in between them to produce the final size of only one panel. (Always in quantities of four pages 8, 12, 16, 20…)

CD Folder Insert
A 2 panel or more insert for a Compact Disc which is a minimum of 2 panels wide folded in half or with more panels folded in a zig zag fashion. Folded to produce the final size of only one panel to fit in the jewel case. (Always counted in quantities of two panels per page. Ex. 2, 4, 6…)

CD Panels
The area that makes up one square area of a CD insert, both front and back makes 1 Panel.

CD Page
One side of a single square area of a CD insert, front is one page and the back makes a second. Always in sets of 2 - front + 1 back = 2 pages.

CD Tent Insert
Panels of an insert on a large printed sheet (4, 6, 8, 12 panels or more) arranged to form a grid, 2 panels wide, in the shape of a square or rectangle to be folded to the size of a single panel to fit in the jewel case. (Minimum of 8 panels, other panels added in sets of 2. A four panel tent would be two rows wide by two rows tall then folded top down and then side to side into one quarter of the original size or one panel.

Color Separations
A printer's term, pertaining to the individual images use to produce a final picture that is processed by stacking varying amount of one color of ink on top of another. Each different color or the process would need a "Separation". Like yellow plus blue equals green. In this case if yellow and blue were printed individually, one on top the other they would produce green, Photographic images are achieved this same way by representing them with a matrix of varying size dots. Where a color is stronger it is represented with larger dots. Most every magazine or CD Insert you have ever read used four color separation process and an off-set printing process (Cyan, Magenta, Yellow and Black). Varying the dot sizes in the color separation can create a wide range of colors.

Collateral Advertising
Product or promotional publications meant to be used with a particular product or service

Consumer Publication
Printed matter intended for the general reader

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- D -

Designated Market Area (DMA)
Targeted audience coverage area reached by television stations

DPI (Dots Per Inch)
The accuracy or amount of information used to represent an image detail or size in Dots Per Inch.

Duplication
Referring to CD manufacturing, this usually means one off production or burning to a CDR.

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- E -

Engineer
The name of the person who handled or implemented the technical skills needed to operate and initiate the available technology for recording or tracking of your project.

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- F -

Film Negatives
An image reversed on film or on a press plate. This is done with off-set printing because the image gets reversed back to a positive when the film is exposed to a printing plate, this reverses the image back to a positive. (Ex. Inkjet or Laser Printout).

Film Positives
An image produced on film used as part of a production process to transfer an image from one source to another. This is most commonly used in silk screening

Flap
In reference to a Casette Insert; the aprox. 1 1/8" image area on a cassette insert which shows to the back while facing the cover (front), this area normally contains a song list.

FTP (File Transfer Protocol)
One of the most common computer codes used to upload multiple files or large files to an internet server, usually to provide access to other computers.

Full Color Printing
A term often referring to Four Color Process Printing which produces a "full" range of colors using Cyan, Magenta, Yellow and Black, but not all colors can be created exactly using this process. (See Gamut Colors)

 

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- G -

Gamut Colors
Colors that can not be accurately generated using four color process printing methods. Many bright oranges appear rusty or dark blues appear purple.

Glassmaster
The high speed physical production process used to mass produce Compact Discs also known as "Replication".

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- H -

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- I -

Initial Proof
usually a computer generated image used to closely match the colors and look of the design for customer's approval/changes. (Ex. Inkjet or Laser Printout or low resolution E-mail files)

ISP
Internet Service Provider - a company that sells you access to the internet. This usually includes a n E-mail Box.

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- J -

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- K -

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- L -

Lithograph Printing
a process by which an image represented by a matrix of small dots on a metal plate is used to collect and transfer ink to a blanket, this image is then transferred to paper (also called Offset Printing).

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- M -

Mastering Engineer
Once your project is mixed and all effects, EQ's, Mutes, Edits etc. are done then it must be "polished" for a final master. This is the name of the Engineer who handles placing the song sequence, finished / mixed song edits, Level enhancements, and basically bringing the recording up to industry standards for a final master CD.

Media Kit
Organized package of information that includes background information on general topic or special events

Mix Engineer
This will be the engineers name that does the multi-track mixing down to the two track finished mix portion of your project as well as the fine tweaking of effects, EQ's, Mutes, fine edits etc.

Moire'
a "ghostly" or "checkered" distortion pattern which occurs in all or part of a digital image when it is digitally recaptured. This is caused when the original dot pattern in not recaptured in the same direction or in the same size, thus giving the affect of two overlapping checker boards. Distortion in the image may appear almost as if it were being viewed through a window screen grid.

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- N -

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- O -

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- P -

Panels (CD)
the area that makes up one side of one page of a CD insert. (Always in sets of 2 - 1 front & 2 back)

Photo-Ready
a clean, sharp version of an image which can be accurately and cleanly reproduced, either from a crisp high resolution hard copy or high resolution electronic file.

Photo-Merging
digital combining of two or more images into one.

Pixel
a small square individual speck of a digitized image.

Pixilation
this undesired effect occurs in a digital image when it does not have enough information to render it accurately (resolution too low). This normally results in "blocky" of "zigzag" looking edges along contrasting parts and a general lack of detail in an image.

Pixelation is caused by a digital image being too small to be printed smoothly. Printers print out each pixel as a small blocks of color, the smaller the blocks, the less our eyes notice them. A lot of magazines print out at resolutions of around 300 DPI, meaning that a 300 pixel by 300 pixel image would be printed out as a 1 inch square. This is generally a good resolution for quality. If the same picture was printed at 2" by 2", your printer would simply use larger blocks of colour. When these blocks become noticable to the eye, the output image is pixelated.

Printer's Proof
a color image produced to almost exactly match the colors and look of the final Lithograph printed materials; used for customer approval and for press operator to match colors while printing. (Ex. Pictro Proof, Matchprint, Chromolin)

Point Size
the standard measurement increment used to specify font size.

Process Color Printing
a Lithograph printing process which uses varying percentages of four different colors (cyan, magenta, yellow and black) to produce an image on paper. (Most all color magazines, postcards, brochures… you get in the mail each day use this process.)

Producer
The person in charge of or "Over-seeing" the entire/overall project in regards to performance, production, presentation, sound… In a lot of cases if a producer has not been hired for your project then your lead Engineer along with the artist would typically be titled as Producer or Producers. (Such as: Produced by - Engineer Name and Artist Name)

Platform incompatibility
a software conflict which occurs when a file generated on a computer using a particular operating system can not be opened by a different operating system. (Ex. A Macintosh file that can not be opened on a Microsoft System)

Program incompatibility
a software conflict when a digital file generated in one computer program is not openable in a different computer program.

Publisher
Makes sure that any original music have been copyrighted.

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- Q -

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- R -

Resolution
A measurement for the amount of information used to represent a digital image (usually Dots Per Inch or DPI). This is actually a 3 dimensional measurement (the width and height of an image times the amount of dots per unit of measurement).

Replication
Referring to Compact Discs manufacturing when a CD is reproduced by utilizing the Glassmaster process.

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- S -

 

Scan
A digital image captured by a scanner.

Scanner
An image capturing devise that passes across a photograph. As it does it captures and stores reflected light and saves it to a digital file line by line.

Standard J-card
A cassette insert made up of: the cover image area, the spine, and the flap. This is the minimal standard insert for cassettes.

Spine
She tall thin image area appearing on the side or edge of cassette or CD package. This is on the left edge facing the cover of a cassette, a CD has two.

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- T -

Trap
The ability of one color to over print another by adding additional image to the underlay color. This allows for some flexibility when aligning color separations.

Tray
The plastic part of a jewel box that is inside the box and holds the CD itself in place with its center button. This part is snapped in and holds the "Tray Card" in place by pressing it against the bottom of the jewel box.

Tray Card
The printed part of a CD insert which becomes the back when the jewel case is closed (opposite the cover). It is called the Tray Card because it is held in place under the "tray" that holds the disc from the inside of the packaging.

 

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- U -

Under-printing
In reference to silk screening the printing of a white base printed first, then all other colors printed on top of and cover it so the printed colors show up not the dark shirt beneath; this is due to the slightly translucent properties of the ink.

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- Y -

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© 1996 Infinity Graphics. All rights reserved. Unauthorized duplication prohibited.