Typography Graphic Design Thesaurus

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of a topic; additional, associative relations provide a richer web of connections between

terms, enhancing browsability.

Why a new thesaurus?

Some existing controlled vocabularies overlap in coverage with TGDT, but none has an

emphasis on the fields it covers. What’s more, rapid changes in these fields since the ad-

vent of computerized typesetting and the ascendancy of the Web and Web design have

left an increasingly large need for a controlled vocabulary on typography or graphic de-

sign.

Development

Sources

A number of diverse sources were consulted, including other thesauri, dictionaries, glos-

saries, manuals, journal articles, and textbooks. To these were added terms from the

author’s experience, terms found on graphic design and typography-related Web sites, and

other reference materials. A list of principle sources begins on page 11.

Standards

The TGDT has been constructed to conform closely to the ANSI/NISO Standard

Z39.19-2005, with the following caveats:

¶Parts of a whole have generally been included in their singular form, by analogy

with the standard’s recommendation on body parts and other cases with literary

warrant (ANSI/NISO Z39.19-2005, §6.5.1.1).

¶Selected identifiers for certain classes of proper names are listed, but are not consid-

ered preferred terms. These are described more fully in Appendix B.

Term selection

The fields of typography and graphic design are no different from other fields in the di-

versity of terminology used by scholars and practitioners.

When choosing terms, three primary considerations were made:

¶ Relevance. Does the term fall within the scope of the TGDT?

¶ Currency. Is the term in current use, or is it obsolete?

¶ Clarity. Does the term clearly and unambiguously identify a concept?

In many instances, a single term may have several, sometimes conflicting uses; such

terms are either rejected in favor of an unambiguous alternative, clarified with a disam-

biguating qualifier – for example, typesetters (equipment) as distinct from typesetters

(people) – or is used only in a limited sense in the TGDT, as indicated by a scope note in

the alphabetic listing. In contrast, two or more terms may be fully or partially synony-