• My Life in Acronyms (a.k.a., MLA)

Designer’s Lexicon | September 24, 2012

This month’s handy design lexicon was created by Annie Beth Ericsson, design assistant, G.P. Putnam’s Sons and Nancy Paulsen Books/Penguin Young Readers Group!

JPEG – Joint Photographic Experts Group
A JPG/JPEG is an image file that has been compressed – the smaller the file size, the lower the image quality.

TIFF – Tagged Image File Format
An uncompressed image file that is better for highest-quality images and professional printing.

BMP – Bitmap
A type of image composed of pixels, where each pixel, or “bit”, contains a square of color information for that image. JPGs and TIFFS are types of bitmaps.

DPI/PPI –  dots per inch/pixels per inch
PPI refers to the number of pixels (per inch) within the image file. DPI refers to the number of ink dots used to print the image, but is often used interchangeably to refer to PPI.  High-resolution (300 PPI or higher) is a print-quality file, but low-resolution (usually 72 PPI) is used for images on the web.

PSD – Photoshop Document
An image file created in Adobe Photoshop that has many layers of images, rather than a single, flat image.

EPS – Encapsulated PostScript
An image file that is a vector, made up of solid shapes and lines rather than pixels. They can be scaled up or down without losing their high quality. These files are typically created in Adobe Illustrator.

INDD – InDesign Document
A file created in Adobe InDesign, with multiple pages and used primarily for book layouts.

FPO – For Position Only
A temporary placeholder image that is not high enough quality to print.

OT – OpenType
A type of font file that is the most popular, due to its advanced ability to hold many characters within a single font file, and work across nearly any computer or application.

PS – PostScript
A type of font file that is older and more difficult to use outside of a Mac.  It often contains multiple files that must be kept together.

SC – Small Caps
Small caps are capital letters that are the same height as lowercase letters.

OsF – Oldstyle Figures
Numbers that have different heights, some aligning on the baseline, and some below.  They work well with lowercase letters and are often less disruptive to the flow of text.

LF – Lining Figures
Numbers that align on the baseline, and are usually the same height as capital letters.

EULA – End User License Agreement
A contractual agreement that licenses font software to individuals and companies.  It determines the restrictions where one can use the font, and how many computers (seats) for which it was purchased.