Nomenclature — entries 535

Design Nomenclature

An illustrated encyclopedia of the words designers use — colour, type, and composition on the flat, through form, surface, and light, to the language of the shop and the modeling package. Every entry is defined, illustrated, and set against the terms it is routinely confused with.

• Color

  Harmony, contrast, appearance, and the models used to specify and mix color.

• Type

  Letterform anatomy, classification, metrics, spacing, and typographic composition.

• Composition

  Gestalt, grids, balance, figure and ground — how flat elements organize on a surface.

• Form & Geometry

  Primitives, topology, curvature, and the vocabulary of three-dimensional form.

• Surface & Material

  Texture, finish, reflectance, and the physically-based vocabulary of materials.

• Light & Optics

  Light types, shadow terms, and the language of rendering and photographic form.

• Digital Model Making

  Modeling paradigms, mesh operations, sculpting, parametric and generative methods.

• Physical Model Making

  Subtractive, additive, forming, casting, and joining — the vocabulary of the shop.

• Systems & Spec

  Measurement, tolerance, accessibility, and the conventions of specifying work.