About the Course

The focus of our semester together will be the amazing creative page layout and design tool, Adobe InDesign. It an essential application for every publication design professional’s tool belt. InDesign is filled with many little-known features, and I can’t wait to share them with you!

We’ll begin with the basics exploring how to create multiple-page layouts with unique master pages to satisfy any publication style.

We’ll then design a few business letters and examine the unique text management capabilities of this amazing program while I show you some useful tips and tricks that will spark up any dull design.

In the following assignment, we’ll concentrate on using images in our designs exploring the amazing world of the text-wrap tools and other useful tips and techniques, and sharing best practices for image placement in InDesign.

Next we’ll examine the nature of color in InDesign, which is handled a little differently than other Adobe applications. We’ll discuss the importance of process color, and I’ll show you how to create, use and save custom-designed colors.

Another assignment will focus on typesetting and copyfitting. In it, we will be designing pages exclusively with type and reviewing the meaning of terms like font, point size, leading and more.

Later in the semester, you’ll get a little real-world experience, designing with type and incorporating images and custom colors into a poster for the spring student show.

We’ll put all these skills together in a series of final assignments that let you showcase your knowledge. Beginning with the art of the simple, one-page newsletter.

And we’ll explore duplex printing in a 2-sided folded mailer assignment, which is part 3D page design and part origami.

We’ll round out the semester with the résumé assignment, which may well be most important project this semester, and not always as simple as it looks.

By then, you’ll have worked through the ten lessons, and hopefully picked up some valuable tips and tricks professional artists and designers know, while developing a portfolio of images you can really use for work, school or just to delight and amaze your friends and family.

So let’s get going! ->

©2024 HARRY ST.OURS

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