Graphic Art, Design and Print like most industries generally contain wording and terminology, which is often unique or offers a different interpretation from those in common usage.
Below is a list of the terms you may encounter when dealing with promotional, marketing or advertising projects.
| Term | Definition |
| Alterations | Changes made to copy after it has been set in type. |
| Artwork | Drawings, lettering, images and general ornamentation created by the designer to meet the client specification. |
| Art Paper | Paper, coated in a gloss or matt finish for printing |
| Author's Corrections | Corrections made by the author to modify the final proof or which occur after the scope of the quoted work is complete. |
| Back Up | Printers term meaning to print on both sides of the stock. |
| Bitmap File | Electronic document that describes a sequential collection of bits that together form an image. Popular bitmap files formats include BMP, GIF, PCX and TIFF. |
| Bind | To fasten sheets with wire, thread or glue to form a book or similar. |
| Bleed | Where the artwork image extends to or beyond the edge of the printed image so as to not leave a border |
| Blind Emboss | A design that is stamped or pressed into a piece of paper to create a three dimensional effect. |
| BMP | File format for bitmapped images (short for bitmap) |
| Body Type | Used for the text of a book or document as distinguished from the headings. |
| Bold (type) | Type that is heavier than the text type with which it is used to distinguish or highlight words or sections. |
| Brightness | A measure of the reflectance or brilliance of paper. |
| Brochure | Pamphlet bound in the form of a booklet. |
| Burn | Exposing a printing plate to high intensity UV light to lock the printing image to the plate. Saving an electronic document onto a CD |
| Butt Fit | Images joined without any overlap. |
| Carbonless | Pressure sensitive writing paper, which transfers images to subsequent copies. |
| Case Bound | A binding process used to create hard cover books. |
| Cast-Coated | Paper or board with an extremely high gloss reflective finish. |
| Collate | A finishing term for gathering/sorting papers into correct order. |
| CD-ROM | Optical disc, stores ~ 700Megabytes of information. |
| CMYK | Process colours used to create full colour documents Cyan, Magenta, Yellow & BlacK. |
| Colour bars | A band of colour printed at the tail edge of the sheet to allow checking of colour density across the sheet. |
| Colour Separation | Process of separating the colours making up the final image into CMYK prior to going to print. |
| Continuous Tone | An image which contains gradient tones from black to white |
| Contrast | The tonal graduation between highlights and shadows in an image or artwork piece. |
| Crop/Cropping | Trimming or masking off unwanted portions of an image or illustration. |
| Crosshairs | Registration marks for accurate positioning of images when printing more than one colour (as in CMYK) |