Color Theory & Psychology
These hues include reds, oranges, and yellows.
What are warm colors?
This color model is used for digital screens.
What is RGB?
The group a publication is intended to reach.
What is the audience?
These short summaries beneath a headline help preview the story and give readers more context before they dive in.
What are decks?
This is a newspaper’s nameplate at the top of page one.
What is the masthead?
Green commonly symbolizes nature and balance, an idea explained by this field.
What is the psychology of color?
This printer color system uses cyan, magenta, yellow, and black.
What is CMYK?
This page lists all stories and their page numbers.
What is the contents page?
This acronym guides editors when placing strong elements in each quadrant of a front page.
What is ATSI?
This note tells readers where an article continues on another page.
What is a jump line?
Using red for warnings or green for “go” are examples of this.
What is appropriate use of color?
This term refers to colors formed by overlapping CMYK inks.
What is process color?
This visual element on a magazine cover often stays consistent across issues and helps establish brand identity.
What is the logo?
Headlines that appear side by side with equal weight create this visual collision.
What are tombstones?
Small head-and-shoulders images that should stay under one column wide.
What are mug shots?
This distinction separates colors that are commonly found in nature from those that are fabricated or artificial.
What is natural vs. unnatural color?
This premixed ink is used when a brand needs exact color reproduction.
What is spot color?
This inner margin near the spine needs extra space so text does not disappear.
What is the gutter?
This design strategy wraps text around photos using shapes like U, L, or bookend.
What are text shapes?
This design mistake leaves a single short word stranded on a new line at the end of a paragraph.
What is a dangling word?
A designer often builds one of these structured sets—analogous, monochromatic, or complementary—to keep visuals consistent.
What is a color palette?
A rough layout sketch built before the real design helps map content placement.
What is a dummy?
This small but essential design element—often overlooked by readers—anchors every magazine page by quietly providing location cues such as page number, section name, or issue date, and must remain consistent across the entire publication to maintain navigational clarity.
What is a folio?
This principle ensures the page isn’t heavily weighted on one side and that all quadrants work together visually.
What is creating a well-balanced page?
This term refers to placing text or headlines so close together that they visually collide or appear to “touch,” creating confusion for readers.
What is butting?