A flat, unengraved printing plate or designated area on a layout used to lay down a solid, even wash of background color. It provides a base tint over which darker text, halftones, or line art are printed. In letterpress and older offset workflows, physical blocks of metal, linoleum, or rubber were cut to size to create these colored panels.
Heard on the job
We need a pale yellow tint block behind the sidebar text to make it pop against the white page.