10 Nov 7 Design Terms Explained
When working with clients on a web or graphic design project, we often find that our customers don’t know some of the lingo we use to describe certain elements or aspects of the project. Do terms like mobile responsive, hosting, domain name, or png seem like a foreign language to you? If so, you’re not alone. We wanted to create this simple guide to better define some common terms so you can better communicate with your designer. Keep reading and you will be talking like a design pro in no time! Here are 7 popular design terms explained.
Mobile Responsive
Mobile responsive websites are sites that auto resize to fit any screen size. If your site is mobile responsive, it means it will adapt and look great on screen whether you are viewing the site from a large monitor, laptop, ipad, or mobile device. Non mobile responsive sites often require the user to scroll left and right when viewing on smaller screen sizes. If your site is not mobile responsive, popular search engines like Google will hurt your search engine positioning so having a mobile responsive site really is important!
Hosting
Our customers often feel overwhelmed and a bit confused when we ask them about things like hosting. Hosting is a term that is used to describe the storage of your website’s data on a server so it is accessible on the internet. Putting a website online requires storage space, or hosting to keep it live on the internet. The bigger the website you have, the more storage it will require so you may need a more powerful hosting plan than smaller sites.
Domain Name
Your domain name is your website’s main identity. In order to create a website, you need to buy the rights to the url so that your site will have a specific “home” online. Our domain name is wolfeinteractive.com
Body Copy & Lorem Ipsum
Often times we ask our customers for copy. Body copy is simply the text on your site. This paragraph is an example of some body copy. When building a website, we will often place filler text in areas that we know will need copy. This filler text is always composed of lorem ipsum, a fake language used by designers as dummy text until we can replace it with real body copy. Lorem ipsum is helpful because we always know what text is real, and what will need to be replaced.
PNG (Portable Networks Graphic)
PNG stands for portable networks graphic. .png files are often used in web design as they are compressed files optimal for web display and can support transparent backgrounds unlike .jpg files. We always ask our clients to send us their logos as .png files if they do not have the original photoshop or illustrator files.
CMS (Content Management System)
CMS stands for content management system and is a term often used by web designers. Content management systems are used to control and edit the content on your website. For example, our website was built using WordPress, a popular content management system because of its versatility and user friendliness.
SEO (Search Engine Optimization)
SEO stands for search engine optimization and describes the tools and methods used to help search engines find and list your site on organic search results. There are SEO techniques to “boost your SEO” so that your site will rank higher on popular search engines.
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