Was That RBG or CMYK?

Certain pairs just always go together. Chocolate and vanilla. Night and day. Sun and rain. Dogs and cats. Dinner and dessert. They are opposites that attract. Better together, each half complementing its partner.  Try making chocolate cookies without the vanilla. Yuck. And really, how would you appreciate a beautiful sunny day if you couldn’t compare it to a rainy one. I love my cats so much because, let’s face it, they are not dogs. Dogs are nice, but they are not cats. And dinner without dessert? What would be the point of that?

In graphic design, there are also pairs that just go together. Serif type and san-serif type. CMYK and RGB. Raster and vector. Different. And used in different ways. Sometimes together (combining serif and san-serif can be a good thing), sometimes not (like mixing CMYK and RGB). Here is a handy list for both digital and print designers (and their clients) from Shutterstock with nice concise explanations of five commonly used (and confused) sets of graphic design terms. Understand one and you should understand the other.