Basic Elements and Terms of Graphic Designing

“There are three responses to a piece of design – yes, no, and WOW!

Wow is the one to aim for.”

- Milton Glaser

Graphic Designing is just like visual design or you can say Visual Communication. Designing plays a very imperative role in our lives as it fulfills what a person dreams about. It can portray all the things you can imagine, all you have to do is just IMAGINE and you’ll get it right in front of your eyes. Yes, Graphic design is that powerful.

Without design, our life would have been very dull and boring, design brings colors in people’s life and makes them happy and cheerful.

Design has such deep impact on our life that without it everything would feel very empty. Imagine living in a world which has no colors, no pictures, no illustrations, no message to communicate it will be very difficult to live in a world like that. With design we can relate to every picture we see, every message we read.

Graphic designing is everything that you see, even the slightest dot or a line is a part of graphic designing. It is nothing but communicating a message and making it relatable with the help of colors, shapes, pictures, typography etc. It combines color, shapes, text, pictures, illustrations e.tc and convert it into one artwork which displays a message that the person who sees it understands it well.

Don’t misconcept graphic designing as just creating beautiful artworks and something which is pleasing to a person’s eyes. Graphic designing is lot more than this. If a person sees a design and says yes it’s very good but I can’t understand the meaning behind it then that is bad design because if you can’t explain the meaning of a design then creating beautiful artworks is of no use because you are not able to make it meaningful. A design which is both appealing and meaningful is what a good design is.

So, always aim for creating meaningful designs and not just beautiful artwork.

GRAPHICS are visual presentations on anything that you can see or touch whether it’s a wall, a cloth, a paper, a rock or any surface,

DESIGN is to draw something which is pleasing to a person’s eyes.

Graphic designing on a whole is a process of combining typography, photography and illustration in order to communicate a message which is easy to comprehend.

Elements of graphic designing

Elements of graphic designing are very important and it should not be underrated as it’s the base on which the work is done.

So, the elements of graphic designing are:

• Point
• Line
• Shape
• Pattern
• Texture
• Space
• Size
• Typography
• Color
• Image

Point or a Dot: Points are the building blocks of graphic designing. It is the coordinate without any dimensions. It is also the simplest element of graphic design. It is a point which creates attention in a design

Line: Line is a continuous series of points adjacent to each other. It is also called a connection between two points. It can be used for creating emphasis on one particular word or sentence, to create different patterns, or to connect two or more points. Types of lines can be horizontal, vertical, diagonal, curvy, zigzag etc.

Shape: It is a 2-D or 3-D area that stands out from the rest. It can be a geometric figure like rectangle, square, triangle, rhombus, circle, ellipse e.tc. It can also be used to communicate messages like a square shape depicts stability, honesty, while a triangle depicts the body and mind connection, creativity and harmony.

Pattern: Repeated decorative design. It can also be called a sequence of shapes. It’s a form of surface that is structured in a way that creates regular and consistent form of shapes.

Texture: A rough surface which feels the same when you touch it. It can be a 3-dimensional feel or any illusion of a surface. It can be rough, bumpy, scratchy, smooth etc.

Space: The empty area around or between any element is called space. It can be used to define a separation between two elements. If it is used wisely it creates the design very soothing and gives it a clean look.

Size: It is how big or small your element is and how much area that element is taking. It creates an organized look for example in a paragraph heading size is double the content size and the heading automatically takes the viewer’s attention.

Typography: It is an art of creating the text in such a manner that it appears very appealing and beautiful. It defines how a word is visually seen. The process of arranging, combining the letters, numbers or symbols.

Color: It is very important element in a design as it makes a design much more attractive, because without colors a viewer does not feel connected with the design. Colors are also used to show emotions and create importance.

Image: It is representation of a person or an art. Every picture has its own story. Likewise, in graphic design every picture tells a story which makes it easier for a viewer to comprehend.

Basic terms in graphic designing

Image modes:

• Raster images: Are also called bitmap images which are made up of small sized pixels. The entire grid of pixels creates the whole image. The pieces of pixels creates a mosaic like structure when we scale up these images, it gets blur and distorted. These types of raster images are generally used in digital like in a photograph or collages. There are different types of raster images like jpeg, png, gif etc. The software for raster images is Adobe Photoshop. Photoshop is called a raster software so if you edit an image in Photoshop and if you will scale up that image, the image will pixelate it will get blurry.
• Vector images: Unlike raster images, vector images are not made up of pixels rather they are composed of paths each with mathematical formula that tells how the path will be shown. These types of images do not get pixelated when scaled up as it does not have any pixels. The software for raster images is Adobe Illustrator or Corel Draw. Generally vector images are used in logos, illustrations, engraved artworks, signage e.tc
• Color modes:
• RGB: Red + Green+ Blue =RGB. This color mode is generally used to create digital output and is associated with electronic display like LCD, digital cameras, scanners. It is an additive color model in which these three colors are added together to create a broad range of colors.
• CMYK: Cyan + Magenta+ Yellow+ Key (black) = CMYK. This color mode is generally used for printing purposes like for magazines, newspapers, hoardings, banners etc. The black color is called key because in this color mode all the colors plates are aligned or keyed with the black key plate.
• Resolution: It is square inch area which is composed of number of rows and columns of pixels. When image is scaled up resolution will be low and when it’s not scaled up, resolution will be high. Resolution is measured in DPI and PPI
• DPI (dots per inch): Used in printing process. The more dots per inch the better will be the quality of the image. 300dpi is the standard number for print.
• PPI (pixels per inch): It is when you scale up a Photoshop image, the number of pixels per inch will increase which eventually will reduce the quality of the image.

Serif: It is a typeface that has a small spike or a small line attached at the end of each letter or symbol. Also called a serifed typeface. Examples of fonts that are serif: Times new roman, new century school book, vijaya, copperplate gothic e.tc. These types of fonts are usually used in newspapers for better readability.

Sans Serif: It is a typeface that does not have any spike or stroke at the end of letters or symbols. These fonts have less line width as compared to serif fonts. Generally used to show simplicity and minimalism. Examples of fonts that are sanserif: Arial, Lithos pro, Agency Fb, Mv Boli e.tc

Negative space: The white space around the words and shapes in the design.