Visual Glossary

Media Studies

Masthead:• A masthead is a graphic image that is often found at the top of a newspaper or

magazine page. The masthead may include a number of different elements that are designed to catch the eye and provide the page with a degree of visual appeal. Most designers for mastheads also attempt to create a final design that will be easy for viewers to remember and easily associate with the publication.

• the masthead may contain such key elements as an easily recognized company logo, a text title in fonts and colours that catch the eye, or some sort of graphic image that helps to tell the viewer something important about the purpose and function of the web site.

Cover lines:• Cover lines are short statements found on the cover of the magazine that allude to

or describe the articles inside. Their purpose is to entice the reader into picking up and/or buying the magazine. Generally there's one main larger cover line and then a few (or lots of) smaller ones.

Pull quotes:• a brief, attention-catching quotation taken from the main text of an article and

used as a subheading or graphic feature.

Banner:• A banner or banner ad is a form of advertising on the internet delivered by an ad

server. This form of online advertising entails embedding an advertisement into a web page. It is intended to attract traffic to a website by linking to the website of the advertiser. The advertisement known as a "click through." In many cases, banners are delivered by a central ad server.

Barcode:• a machine-readable code in the form of numbers and a pattern of parallel lines of

varying widths, printed on a commodity and used especially for stock control.• "the scanner at the checkout would pick up the different bar codes on the packets

and charge the correct amount"

Rule of Thirds:• The rule of thirds is a guideline which applies to the process of composing visual

images such as designs, films, paintings, and photographs. The guideline proposes that an image should be imagined as divided into nine equal parts by two equally-spaced horizontal lines and two equally-spaced vertical lines, and that important compositional elements should be placed along these lines or their intersections. Proponents of the technique claim that aligning a subject with these points creates more tension, energy and interest in the composition than simply centring the subject would.

Serif and Sans Serif font:• A small decorative line added as embellishment to the basic form of a character.

Typefaces are often described as being serif or sans serif (without serifs). The most common serif typeface is Times Roman. A common sans serif typeface is Helvetica.

• When applied to the cinema, mise-en-scène refers to everything that appears before the camera and its arrangement—composition, sets, props, actors, costumes, sounds, and lighting. The “mise-en-scène”, along with the cinematography and editing of a film, influence the verisimilitude of a film in the eyes of its viewers. The various elements of design help express a film’s vision by generating a sense of time and space, as well as setting a mood, and sometimes suggesting a character’s state of mind.]“Mise-en-scène” also includes the composition, which consists of the positioning and movement of actors, as well as objects, in the shot

Mise-en-Scene:

Extra Diegetic gaze:• a textual character consciously addresses (looks at) the viewer, e.g. in dramaturgy,

an aside to the audience; in cinema, acknowledgement of the fourth wall, the viewer.