AdWords
AdWords (Google AdWords) is an advertising service offered by Google for businesses wanting to display ads on Google and its advertising network.
Brand
A living business asset, designed to enhance the connection between your business and your audience.
Branding
The process of creating a unique name and image for a product or service.
Brand Audit
A brand audit is a health check of your brand to identify and address problem areas.
Brand Essence
Your ‘why’; a statement or short paragraph expressing your company’s core purpose or reason for being.
Brand Onion
A graphic device to help plot your brand’s essence and values in order to develop the brand’s unique identity.
Brand Personality
‘Think of a brand as a person’; the attribution of human characteristics to your brand to achieve differentiation.
Brand Promise
A brand promise communicates the benefits and experiences the audience should expect from it. Good brands live up to their promises!
Brand Proposition
An inspiring and compelling statement from your brand to its audience.
Brand Values
A set of beliefs or attributes that express what your brand stands for and the principles that define how it behaves. See Brand onion.
CMS
Online Content Management System (CMS) allows brands and others to create, publish and manage content on a platform such as WordPress.
CMYK Colours
In CMYK printing, all matter is made up from four colours; cyan, magenta, yellow and black. This differs from Pantone® colours which are specially mixed colours which allows for a much wider range of colours. For example, you can’t print some colours such as metallic gold or silver using CMYK colours. See Pantone® colours.
Copywriting
Copywriting is the act of writing text for the purpose of advertising or other forms of marketing. The product, called copy, is written content that aims to increase brand awareness and ultimately persuade a person or group to take a particular action.
Domain Name
A unique name that serves as an address on the internet for locating and/or accessing your brand’s website. You need to create and buy a domain name if you don't yet have one.
Ethical Business/Organisation
A business/organisation that takes into consideration the affect of all its activities on every creature on the living Earth and takes steps to minimise any negative impact on them.
File formats
.ai file
Adobe Illustrator ‘vector’ files which are compatible with most professional design software packages. Vector files can be enlarged without loss of detail or pixilation so they are suitable for all printed material.
.indd file
Adobe InDesign file, which is industry standard professional design software for creating layouts.
.jpg or jpeg file
jpg files are compressed files. They are suitable for use on electronic forms, internal documents, websites, or other electronic media.
.pdf file
Portable Document Format files can be opened by any computer which has Adobe Reader installed. They can also be opened in Adobe Illustrator.
.png file
png files allow you to save graphics with a ‘transparent’ background where it would normally be white. This is useful for ‘floating’ graphics over a base colour. They are suitable for use on electronic forms, internal documents, websites, or other electronic media.
Hex Colours
Designers and developers use HEX colours in web design.
Infographic
An infographic is a graphic visual presentation of information or data.
Logotype/Wordmark
A logotype, or wordmark, is the way a company, product or service name is designed using letterforms. It doesn’t necessarily also use a graphic symbol. Eg Google, ebay, IBM.
Logo
A symbol or other design adopted by an organisation to identify its products, uniform, vehicles, etc.
Open Source
Open Source software is created by an open community of developers for use in coding and can be freely used, modified, and distributed by anyone.
Pantone® Colours
Pantone® colours are pre-mixed colours to a standardised colour matching system, using the Pantone® numbering system for identifying. It gives a much wider range of colours for printing than CMYK colours. See CMYK colours.
Pay Per Click (PPC)
Pay Per Click is in which advertisers pay a fee each time one of their ads is clicked.
Plug-In
A Plug-In is a piece of code specially created to add additional functionality to your website eg Adobe Flash.
Responsive Web DesignResponsive design is designing your web page with flexible layouts so that your web pages detect your visitor’s screen size and orientation and change the layout accordingly.
RGB Colours
RGB (red, green, blue) colours is how colour is represented on a screen.
Search Engine
A Search Engine allows users to search the internet for content using keywords. Google is a search engine.
Search Engine Optimisation (SEO)
SEO or Search Engine Optimisation is the name given to activity that attempts to improve search engine rankings.
Social Media Post
In business, social media is used to market products, promote brands, connect to and engage with current customers and develop new business. Example platforms: Facebook, LinkedIn, Instagram, Twitter, Pinterest.
Tone of Voice
The distinct way of speaking and communicating your brand uses to communicate with your audience that reflects your brand’s personality.
Typeface/Font
In typography, a typeface (also known as font family) is a set of one or more fonts. Each font of a typeface has a specific weight, style, condensation, width, slant, italicisation, ornamentation. Note: not all fonts are free!
Viral Marketing
Viral marketing or viral advertising, is a type of product promotion that relies on consumers sharing an idea, product, or service.
Web Hosting
Web hosting is a home for your website. It is a service that allows you to post your website onto the internet. Your site's files are held on your web hosting service provider's secure servers, providing the technologies and services needed for your website to be viewed on the internet.
Wireframe
A wireframe is a layout of your web page to show what and where elements will exist on key pages.