5 pieces of Design Jargon (and what they mean)
I’ve kept this pretty top level - unless you’re a designer, you won’t need a deep dive into these terms, but a basic understanding will help you to communicate with your designer in a more useful, meaningful way.
1. Banner Blindness.
A ‘condition’ of sorts that’s a product of digital content consumerism, whereby our brains have trained us when to pay attention to something on a page, and when to completely ignore it - based on whether or not your brain registers it to be an advert.
A challenge for designers is staying fresh with visual direction, because advertising trends become added to your brain’s archive of ‘things to ignore’.
Be careful, too, with your page’s layout, and carefully consider your use of spaces that commonly accommodate adverts - people may be prone to glossing over these areas.
And lastly, if your site DOES have adverts on it, make sure that your own site’s branding is strong and consistent enough that your content doesn’t get lost in the mix.
2. Bounce Rate.
This is IMPORTANT! The bounce rate is the percentage of visitors to your website who view ONLY one page, and then leave. So, whichever page they land on (and remember, this isn’t always the homepage) is the ONLY page they view.
This typically points to things like poor navigation (not just in your site’s header / footer, but also in signposting within the site’s content), as well as poor brand communication - ie. your copy and visuals simply aren’t communicating a compelling brand, and people have decided that you’re not for them.
3. Hex.
Hex stands for Hexadecimal, and in design terms it refers to the six digital code (made up of letters and numbers) that defines a colour digitally. It converts the RGB (Red Green and Blue) colour values into a language that your computer can understand.
So for example #000000 is the hex colour code for black, and #FFFFFF is the hex colour code white.
#09163E is my brand’s navy blue colour, #ED8D21 is my brand’s yellow, and #F05124 is my brand’s red.
Need to find the hex colour code of something online? I use this Eyedropper Chrome extension plugin.
4. Mask.
Nope, not the sort that they wear at Disneyland, I’m talking about a design term that means to hide all of the image EXCEPT for a specific area.
Using tools like a Layer Mask or a Clipping Mask (don’t worry about the difference!) you can do things like:
display an image inside text
remove the background of a photograph (and then add a new one)
change the properties of just one part of an image (eg. have one component in black and white)
display a pattern in the shape of a circle
make it look like your text is nested within / behind / in front of something (by hiding just a portion of the word)
Masks are an incredible design tool, but take time and practice to use effectively.
5. Negative Space.
Also referred to as White Space, Negative Space is strategically used areas of, well, nothing. Negative Space is a fundamental part of any design, used to create balance, and to help the design to breathe.
It can also be used cleverly, like in the FedEx logo (Google it - look for the arrow in the negative space between the E and the X. You’ll never be able to unsee that now - you’re welcome!).