Better Education for Higher Aspirations.

ADA

The Americans with Disabilities Act, which requires adequate signing for all users, including persons with disabilities

Backer panel

a sign panel used to hide mounting hardware

Channel letters

a fabricated dimensional letter without a back

Code-required

any message or sign that is required by the ADA, state or local building codes

Dimensional

letters with depth

Directional

any sign that directs visitors to a destination

Etching

a method for carving into the surface of a material, particularly metal

First surface

the outside surface or front of a piece of glass

Header

The primary message or title on a sign, usually the largest message strip and type size

Infilling

a process for applying ink to letters that have been etched into a surface

Millwork

custom-made wood panels

Modular

standard size components which are interchangable

Mow strip

a barrier that prevents lawn-mower damage to ground-mounted signs

Overage

Extra, blank message strips for a sign, for future name/message changes.

Pin-mounting

a method for attaching letters or signs to a surface with a metal dowl

PMS

Pantone Matching System, an industry standard color ink system, frequently used for matching colors across materials

Photopolymer process

A photographic sign manufacturing process used to create raised letters and braille.

Reveals

A narrow, raised or indented line which forms a separation between categories or materials on a sign or archetectural surface or material

Sandblasting

a method for carving the surface of a material, particularly glass and stone

Second surface

the inside surface or back of a piece of glass

Silkscreening

a method for permanently applying graphics to any surface using ink

Stanchion

an upright post or support that holds a sign

Surface-applied

attached directly to a surface with adhesive (e.g. , silicon, two-way tape)

Top-coated

Ink applied to the top surface of raised letters which contrasts with the sign background color

Touch Screen

a video or computer monitor which is activated or manipulated by touching the screen

Typography

A specific and distinct style of lettering, also called type, typestyle or font

Vinyl

a die-cut adhesive material used to apply graphics to any surface

Veneer

A thin, surface-applied material

byte

8 bits, reflecting values between 0 to 255; used as a basic
method of measurement of memory or disk size; "K"
represents 1024 bytes

color correctness

the depth and accuracy of an image's color representation,
typically influenced by the color depth and palette of an
image

color depth

the amount of color information in an image, reflected in the # of color bits compression, lossless scheme of organizing information in a more compact form where all of the original information is retained, while gaining a moderate level of compaction

compression, lossy

scheme of organizing information in a more compact form
where some information is lost to gain higher levels of
compaction

cmyk

the four process colors -- cyan, magenta, yellow and black
-- mixed to provide a color image; typically used in printing
applications

dib

Device Independent Bitmap, a variant of a bitmap (bmp) file consisting of header field, an optional pallette, and bitmap data; bitmap has an additional header field

display quality

the characteristics of a display sub-system, such as
resolution, # of colors, dot pitch, and refresh rate, which
influence perceived image quality

dithering

the technique of making adjacent pixels different colors to
make them appear like a different color; utilized to add the
appearance of greater color depth with a limited # of colors

dot pitch

distance in millimeters between two holes in the shadow
mask of a monitor. A smaller dp is better, e.g. 0.28 mm is
better than 0.36.

dpi, dots per inch

sometimes termed pixels per inch, this depicts resolution and is a significant influence on the size of an image file; a higher dpi indicates higher resolution

eps

Encapsulated PostScript file format, an Adobe Systems
graphics file which incorporates PostScript code and can
contain data as vectors or bitmaps; maximum color depth =
16.7 million

gif

Graphics Interchange Format, a lossy compression
technique, popular for exchanging files electronically,
especially on Compuserve; all files have a corresponding
palette; maximum colors = 256

jpeg

Joint Photographers Expert Group; a compressed, lossy
format which is symmetrical, i.e. takes the same amount of
time to compress as decompress; maximum colors = 16.7
million

lpi, lines per inch

measurement of the frequency of "dots" represented in a
halftone image 

mpeg

high-quality video compression/decompression scheme
(CODEC) for encoding video and audio for computer
playback

palette

data structure defining the colors utilized in a bitmap image;
bitmap data is indexed to the palette table

Photo CD

Kodak CD-based digital imaging format, where images are
typically created from 35mm film negatives or slides; includes multiple resolutions of an image in an Image Pac, with all images 24 bpp encoded in YCC format; portability includes Philips CD-Interactive and 3DO Players, as well as PC, Mac & Unix viewers; maximum colors = 16.7 million

pcd

see Photo CD

pcx

ZSoft format, used widely for paint and desktop publishing
programs; popular for exchanging images; maximum 16.7
million colors

PICT

standard format for Macintosh, can contain both vector and
bitmap information; maximum colors = 16.7 million

pixel

picture element, or the smallest unit of the computer screen.
A pixel can be monochrome or up to the pixel depth
available on your color system. Pixels are also used for
identifying screen resolution, e.g. 72 pixels per inch.

pixels per inch, or ppi

sometimes termed dots per inch, this represents resolution

print quality

the characteristics of a printing sub-system, such as the
number of lines per inch and paper quality, which influence
the perceived quality of a printed image

quicktime

a video compression/decompression scheme (CODEC) for
encoding video and audio for computer playback; originally
an Apple Macintosh file format, it is now commonly utilized
on Windows and Unix systems

resolution

measure of the detail in an image; the higher the resolution,
the higher the amount of detail

RGB

red, green, blue mixed to provide a color image, typically
used in video display applications

TGA

Targa format developed by Truevision; usually 15 or 24 bit
full color images, compressed or uncompressed; maximum
colors = 16.7 million

tiff

Tag Image File Format; industry standard image file format;
"tags" represent image attributes, compression, and color
tables; both uncompressed and compressed versions,
although compressed is not as portable; maximum colors =
16.7 million