Glossary

4C/0C

Front of item is printed in full CMYK colour. Back of item not printed.

4C/4C

Both front and back of item printed in full CMYK colour.

ABS

Acrylonitrile butadiene styrene. Light, strong plastic withstands heavy use. Ideal for game tokens.

Bleed

Printing term that refers to the area beyond the trim. Artworks and backgrounds are normally extended to this bleed area to ensure no unprinted edges occur when it is cut. 3mm bleed is the standard at Launch Tabletop.

C1S

Coated one side. Paper stock with thin clear varnish added to front. Back is left uncoated.

C2S

Coated two sides. Paper stock with thin clear varnish added to front and back.

CCNB

Clay coated news back. Sturdy board of compressed recycled paper, coated one side with clay for a smooth printable surface.

CMYK

Standard four-colour (or process) printing using cyan, magenta, yellow, and black inks. Encompasses a wide variety of printing technologies, with the most common being offset printing.

Coated

Thin protective varnish/coating (gloss, satin, or matte) added to printed item.

Die-cut

Cut made to card, either to create custom shapes or sizes, or allow players to 'pop out' tokens from a sheet.

Edge-wrap

Creates smoothly rounded edges on a board.

Font

Often used interchangeably with "typeface", a font is part of a complete set of fonts that make up a typeface. e.g. Helvetica Bold is a font from the Helvetica typeface.

Gloss

A shiny, reflective surface, the opposite to matte.

GPPS

General-purpose polystyrene. Hard, attractive, transparent plastic ideal for game tokens.

Greyboard

Board made of recycled newspaper and packaging pulp. Strong and environmentally friendly.

gsm

Grams per square meter. Indicates weight/thickness of paper products. Higher numbers are thicker, lower numbers thinner.

Hex

Refer to the 6 digit hexadecimal number used in HTML, CSS and design applications to represent colour on digital applications

Lamination

Layer of plastic bonded to a printed item with heat. Creates an attractive and protective finish.

Launch Lab

The board and tabletop game print-on-demand service by Launch Tabletop.

Linen finish

A finish on paper resembling the texture of linen cloth pressed onto printed paper products using large metal plates or rollers.

LTT

Initialism for "Launch Tabletop"

Matte

A natural, unobtrusive surface, the opposite to glossy.

meeple

a token or game piece in a stylised human shape, often made of wood.

mm

Millimeters, a small unit of size measurement common around the world.

PP

Polypropylene (plastic) laminate. Gives printed items a smooth, slippery surface.

Punchboard

A sheet of cardboard containing shapes that are die-cut so they can easily be 'popped out'. Often used for game tokens.

qty

short for "Quantity"

Raster graphic

Raster graphics represent two-dimensional images as a rectangular grid of square pixels, viewable via a computer display, paper, or other display medium. A raster is technically characterized by the width and height of the image in pixels and by the number of bits per pixel. Raster graphics cannot be scaled up to increase their dimensions without an apparent loss of clarity. This is in contrast to vector graphics which are infinitely scalable.

RGB

How colour is rendered on a screen, using red, green, and blue light.

Safe Area

Printing term refers to an area inside the trim to place major artwork and text. Anything outside of this area has the potential to be cut off.

San Serif

Typography term referring to fonts with no spurs or curves at the end of a letter. e.g Arial, Helvetica and Futura.

Satin

A soft, velvety surface, midway between matte and gloss.

Score

A shallow cut made on card so it is easy to fold.

Serif

Typography term referring to fonts with spurs or curves known as serifs at the end of a letter. e.g Times New Roman, Garamond and Baskerville.

Trim

Trim or cut line is a printing term refers to the area where it will be cut/trimmed. Small amounts of natural paper movement may occur when being trimmed. Ensure any artwork or backgrounds that go to the edge is extended to the bleed area.

Typeface

Often used interchangeably with "font", a typeface is a complete set of fonts as part of a type family. e.g. Helvetica Bold is a font from the Helvetica typeface.

Uncoated

A printed item with no varnish/coating added.

USD

Currency code for "United States Dollar"; the currency that all prices on Launch Tabletop are displayed in.

UV printing

A form of digital printing using ultra-violet lights to dry or cure ink as it is printed.

Varnish

Thin clear coating added to a printed item for protection and beauty. May be gloss, satin, or matte.

Vector graphic

Vector graphics are computer images created directly from geometric shapes defined on a Cartesian plane, such as points, lines, Curves and polygons. Vector graphics are based on the mathematics of analytic or coordinate geometry. They are used preferentially for illustrations that need a high degree of accuracy. In game manufacturing, vector graphics are especially important in the creation of dielines.