Print and design glossary: sizes, colour and type

Paper, folds and the printer's vocabulary

The print pages start with size. DL, A5, A6, A3, A2, A1 and US Letter each have a page giving the millimetres and the pixels at 300 DPI, and the folding pages cover bifold, trifold and Z fold brochures. The production pages explain what a print shop asks for and why: trim size, bleed, safe area, crop marks, GSM paper weight, matte against gloss, lamination, duplex printing, proofs, print runs and digital against offset printing. Read these before sending a file to a printer, because most rejected jobs fail on bleed, resolution or colour mode rather than on design.

Colour, type and layout

The design pages cover the choices that make a page readable. Colour terms include palettes, contrast ratio, CMYK against RGB, Pantone and hex against RGB against HSL. Typography terms include serif against sans serif, display fonts, font pairing, font weight, x height, type scales, kerning, tracking and leading, and orphans and widows. Layout terms include visual hierarchy, alignment, white space, gutters, margins against padding, the rule of thirds, and the F and Z reading patterns. The contrast ratio page is the one to read first if the audience includes older readers or the flyer will be seen from across a room.

Screens, files and formats

The last group covers the formats a design is saved in and the screens it appears on. Social size pages give the pixel dimensions for a Facebook cover, a LinkedIn post and a Twitter header, and the aspect ratio page explains why one design rarely fits all of them. The file pages cover resolution against DPI, vector against raster, PNG against JPG for print and WebP. When a question is really about whether something is a flyer, a leaflet or a poster, those comparison pages settle it with a table.

Every page in this collection

• A5 vs A6 flyer: sizes and uses

  The two sizes share the same proportions, so the choice is not about shape but about how much a reader can take in and how much each piece costs to print and deliver. Picking the wrong one usually shows up as tiny text on A6 or wasted space on A5.

• CMYK vs RGB: why printed colours look different

  Almost every complaint that a printed flyer looks different from the screen comes back to this gap between light and ink. Knowing which colours are at risk, before the order is placed, is cheaper than a reprint.

• Digital vs offset printing

  Most flyer orders never reach the quantity where offset pays for itself, yet the choice still shapes colour, paper and the day the boxes arrive. Knowing what each press does well makes a quote much easier to read.

• F pattern vs Z pattern

  Both shapes are repeated so often in design advice that they sound like equal laws of vision. They are not, and knowing which one is evidence and which one is a rule of thumb changes how much weight to give each.

• Facebook cover photo size and safe area

  Most cover photos fail in one of two ways: the words are sliced off on a phone, or the profile picture lands on top of them. Both are avoided by planning for the crop before choosing the image.

• Full bleed vs no bleed: which should a flyer use?

  Whether to bleed is a design decision with a production bill attached, not a technical detail to sort out at the end. Making the call before the layout starts saves either a reprint or a redesign.

• Hex vs RGB vs HSL colour codes

  Brand guidelines, design tools and developers each tend to quote colours in a different notation, and small conversion slips are how a brand teal becomes three slightly different teals. Understanding that all three describe one colour makes it easy to move between them without drift.

• How do QR codes on flyers work?

  The code itself costs nothing and never wears out, so almost every failure is a printing or planning mistake. Size, margin and destination decide whether a passer-by actually lands on the page.

• Kerning vs tracking vs leading

  The three terms get swapped constantly, and the mix up matters because each one fixes a different problem. A headline that looks gappy needs kerning, a line of capitals that looks cramped needs tracking, and a paragraph that feels dense needs leading.

• Leaflet vs flyer vs brochure vs pamphlet: what is the difference?

  The four words overlap so much that printers, councils and dictionaries draw the lines in slightly different places. What actually changes the job is the fold, the page count and how long somebody is expected to keep the thing.

• Letter vs A4: the two page sizes compared

  The difference looks trivial on screen and causes real trouble on paper: cut off footers, shrunken text and forms that no longer line up. Anyone who sends documents, flyers or forms between countries runs into it sooner or later.

• LinkedIn image size for posts, banners and carousels

  LinkedIn splits its image guidance between a help centre for members and Pages and a separate guide for advertisers, and the two do not always use the same numbers. Knowing which page governs which placement saves a lot of cropped headlines.

• Margin vs padding vs white space

  The three terms get used interchangeably in feedback, which makes a request like add more space surprisingly hard to act on. Naming the right one tells whoever is editing exactly which gap to change and what else will move.

• Matte vs gloss vs silk paper

  The finish decides how a flyer behaves under a shop light, in a hand and on a desk, which often matters more to the result than the design file. It also affects whether anyone can write on it, which is easy to forget until a customer needs to.

• PNG vs JPG: which to use

  Choosing the wrong one produces the two most familiar image faults: smudged halos around text in a JPG, and a photograph saved as PNG that is several times the size it needs to be. The right choice follows from what is in the image, not from habit.

• Poster vs flyer: what is the difference?

  The same event often needs both, and the usual mistake is to make one and scale it into the other. A design that reads well in the hand is nearly always too busy on a wall, and the reverse is just as true.

• Resolution vs DPI vs PPI

  The three terms are used as if they were one, which is why a file described as 300 DPI can still print soft and a 72 DPI file can print perfectly. Only the pixel count is fixed; everything else depends on how large the image is printed.

• Serif vs sans serif

  The choice is usually framed as traditional versus modern, which is a question of tone rather than legibility. Getting the tone right is worth the thought, but it is the size and weight of the type that decide whether a flyer can actually be read.

• Social media image sizes for 2026

  Platforms change these numbers quietly, and the size lists passed around online are often a year or two behind. The figures here were checked against the platforms' own help and ad specification pages on 13 September 2026.

• Trifold vs Z fold brochure: the difference

  The fold decides the order in which a reader meets each panel, which means it decides where the headline, the offer and the contact details must go. Designing panels for one fold and printing the other puts content upside down, back to front or hidden inside a flap.

• Vector vs raster images

  Most confusion about blurry logos and oversized files comes from using one kind where the other belongs. Knowing which kind a file is tells you whether it can go on a billboard, whether it can be edited, and what a printer will make of it.

• What are crop marks?

  When several pieces are printed on one large sheet, the person at the guillotine needs a visible reference for every cut. Crop marks are that reference, and whether a shop wants them in your file depends on how that shop works.

• What does print ready mean?

  A file that is not print ready still gets printed, but only after someone fixes it, charges for the time or asks you to resupply, and each round delays the job. Knowing the checklist before you design lets you settle the gaps with the shop at the quote rather than at the deadline.

• What is a bifold brochure?

  The bifold is the simplest brochure to design, print and read, and its wide inside spread gives photographs and plans more room than any three panel fold. Its limit is structure: four pages suit one clear story, not a catalogue of separate topics.

• What is a brand kit?

  An owner, a volunteer and a contractor can all make the same Saturday flyer and still have it look like one business made it. That only happens when the logo, colours and fonts sit somewhere everyone can find them in a form they can use.

• What is a call to action on a flyer?

  A flyer without a clear next step asks the reader to work out what the business wants, and most people will not bother. The call to action turns attention into a phone call, a booking or a visit that someone can actually count.

• What is a colour palette in design?

  Most colour trouble on a flyer comes from too many colours with no agreed role, not from ugly ones. A palette settles the roles first, so the headline, the price and the background stop competing for the same glance.

• What is a design template?

  The words template, layout and theme get used as if they meant the same thing, which makes tools confusing and briefs vague. Separating them tells you which part of a design you are choosing and which part you are still free to change.

• What is a display font?

  The headline is often the only line a passer-by reads, and a display face is what makes that line feel like an event rather than a notice. Set anywhere else on the page, the same face is the quickest way to make a flyer tiring to read.

• What is a gutter in design?

  Gutters are invisible when they work and obvious when they fail: columns that run together, captions that belong to the wrong picture, or words that disappear into the fold of a booklet. The word covers a few related spaces, and each one fails in its own way.

• What is a logo lockup?

  A logo that gets rearranged every time it is used stops being recognisable. The lockup is the rule that keeps the pieces together, and knowing which version to use is what makes a small business look consistent.

• What is a monogram logo?

  Initials are the most compact form a name can take, which is why monograms appear on everything from luggage to law firms. That compactness is also the risk, because two letters mean nothing until people have already met the brand.

• What is a print proof?

  Once a run of five thousand flyers is printed, a typo or a wrong colour is five thousand mistakes and a second invoice. The proof is the last cheap moment to catch it, and signing one usually moves responsibility for anything you missed onto you.

• What is a print run?

  Quantity moves a print quote more than almost anything else on it. Ordering the right run means knowing where the price per copy stops falling and where leftover boxes start costing money.

• What is a stock image?

  The picture is the easy part of a stock image. The terms attached to it are what matter once a flyer goes to print, onto a product or into a paid advert.

• What is a tear-off flyer?

  It is the oldest response device on a community noticeboard, and it still works because it asks for nothing more than a tug. It also shows, at a glance, how many people were interested enough to take something away.

• What is a type scale?

  Every design that looks tidy has fewer text sizes than it seems. A type scale is the decision to limit them in advance, so each size means something and nobody has to guess between 17 and 18.

• What is a WebP image?

  Most people meet WebP by accident, when an image saved from a website will not open in the program they wanted or a printer refuses the upload. It is an excellent format for screens and a poor fit for print, and knowing that difference saves a round of conversions.

• What is A1 size?

  A1 is the size conference organisers choose when boards are shared, rooms are small or posters are displayed in corridors. It holds a surprising amount of content, provided the design was sized for it rather than shrunk down from a bigger board.

• What is A2 size?

  A2 is the first size in the series that clearly reads as a poster from a distance, while still fitting in a standard frame, a shop window or the back of a door. Understanding how it relates to the sizes around it makes every enlargement and reduction predictable.

• What is A3 size?

  A3 is the point where a printed page stops being a document and starts being a poster, yet it still comes out of an ordinary office machine. That makes it the cheapest poster to produce and the one most often printed at the wrong resolution.

• What is alignment in design?

  Alignment is the cheapest improvement available to almost any flyer, because it costs no new content, colour or image. It is also the first thing to go when elements are added in a hurry near a print deadline.

• What is an AI generated image?

  Making a picture from a sentence takes seconds, and the legal questions arrive just as quickly. Using one on a flyer is usually straightforward, but owning it outright is a different matter in most countries.

• What is aspect ratio?

  Most cropping surprises, stretched logos and letterboxed photos come down to two shapes that do not match. Once the ratio is known, deciding what will be cut becomes a choice rather than an accident.

• What is contrast ratio?

  A grey that looks elegant on a designer's calibrated monitor can vanish on a phone in afternoon sun. The ratio turns that judgement into a number that can be checked before anything is printed or posted.

• What is DL size?

  DL exists because of the envelope: fold an A4 letter twice and it fits, and a flyer cut to the same shape slots into the same racks, envelopes and letterboxes. That shared shape is why printers quote it so cheaply and why it is a different design problem from A4.

• What is duplex printing?

  A second side adds almost no paper, but it doubles the design work and changes how the flyer gets read in the hand. Deciding whether the back earns its place is the real question, not whether the press can do it.

• What is font pairing?

  Most pairing problems are not ugly fonts but fonts that are nearly identical, so readers cannot tell whether the difference was intended. The fix is usually fewer faces with a clearer job each, not a cleverer combination.

• What is font weight?

  Weight is the cheapest way to make one line matter more than another without changing its size or colour. It is also easy to overuse, and a flyer where everything is bold has no emphasis left.

• What is GSM paper weight?

  Paper weight is the first thing a person notices when handed a flyer, before they read a word, and it changes cost, postage and how the piece folds. Choosing the number deliberately is one of the cheapest ways to make print feel considered.

• What is lamination in printing?

  Lamination is often the difference between a menu that lasts a season and one that is stained in a week, but it adds cost, thickness and a step that cannot be undone. Choosing it well means matching the film to how the piece will be handled, lit and thrown away.

• What is Pantone?

  Screens, printers and papers all change how a colour looks, so describing a brand colour as a particular blue gives a different result at every shop. A shared numbered reference removes that guesswork, at a printing cost that only some jobs justify.

• What is the rule of thirds?

  It started as advice for painters and photographers, and it transfers to flyers because a flyer is also a frame with a subject. The grid is a starting point for placing a photo and its headline, not a law every element has to obey.

• What is the safe area in print?

  Guillotines and trimmers are accurate to a small tolerance, and paper moves slightly in a stack, so the cut never lands on exactly the same line twice. The safe area is the margin that absorbs that movement for the content that matters.

• What is trim size?

  Almost every print order, quote and template starts from the trim size, so getting it wrong affects the price, the paper and whether the design fits at all. It is also the number people most often confuse with the size of the file they send.

• What is visual hierarchy?

  A flyer gets a glance before it gets a read, and the glance decides whether the read happens at all. Hierarchy is what the glance lands on, and whether that is the thing you most needed someone to see.

• What is white space in design?

  Empty space on a paid flyer can feel like wasted money, so it is usually the first thing sacrificed to fit one more line. That trade almost always costs more attention than the extra line gains.

• What is x-height?

  Point size tells you how much vertical room a font was given, not how big its letters look. x-height is the part of that measurement your eye actually reads, which is why switching fonts can quietly shrink every line on a flyer.

• Widows and orphans in typography

  These are small faults that make a page look unfinished even to readers who have never heard the terms. On a flyer, where every line is visible at once, the single stranded word is the one that shows.

• X header size and safe area

  The header is the first thing anyone sees when they tap through from a post to a profile, and it is shown at a different size on every device. Designing for the part that always survives matters more than hitting the pixels exactly.