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Graphic Design vocabulary · Design Principles

Scale

Meaning in graphic design, with examples

/skeɪl/nounCommon term

In graphic design, scale means: The size of an element compared with other elements or with the whole design. Changing scale creates contrast, drama and a clear order of importance.

In Turkish: ölçek, boyut, boyut ilişkisi

How it is used

Used in critiques and art direction (‘play with scale’). As a verb, you scale an image up or down; designers warn that scaling raster images up reduces quality, while vectors scale freely.

Example sentences

  1. Play with scale: make the number huge and keep everything else small.

  2. Don't scale the photo up past 120%; it'll start to look soft.

Common collocations

  • play with scale
  • sense of scale
  • scale up
  • scale down
  • change of scale
  • visual hierarchyThe order in which people notice and read the parts of a design, created with size, colour, contrast, position and spacing, so the most important message is seen first.
  • contrastA clear difference between elements, for example dark and light, big and small or thick and thin, used to attract attention and make text and shapes easy to see.
  • focal pointThe part of a design that attracts the eye first and holds attention, often created with size, colour, contrast or position.
  • vector graphicAn image made of points, lines and curves defined by mathematics rather than pixels, so it can be scaled to any size without losing quality. Logos and icons are usually vector graphics.

This word in other fields

The same English word can have a different meaning in another field:

More terms: Design Principles

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