Brief: You are required to produce a visually considered A3 double page spread based upon your subject matter (a fellow classmate) using Adobe InDesign. The article must contain at least 300 words and two images based on the content gathered through the interview.
Interview
Each member of the group was given a partner to interview through their names being picked randomly out of a cup. We then had a while to ask our partners whatever we liked, to get an idea of their personality in case we didn't know them very well, so that we could write about them and create an appropriate layout for them using InDesign.
General Questions
Full name: Peter James Maxwell Gregory (known as Max)
Appearance: Tall with long curly dark hair
D.O.B: 25/07/91 (19 years old)
From: Middlesborough, but lived in France from the age of four to six because of dad's work. Didn't like it when he was there but missed it when came back. Went to school in a lighthouse and used to speak fluent french but doesn't anymore.
Hobbies: Football, playing guitar (used to be in a band before university, could start a graphic design band), playstation, going to the pub, socialising
Drives: a punto called Percy
Job: used to be a cleaner at a primary school
Favourite food: Parmo (a Middlesborough thing)
Favourite crisps flavour: Cheese and chive - Seabrooks, doesn't like salt and vinegar
Tea or Coffee?: Coffee person since starting university
Favourite music: guitar music, Led Zepplin, Radiohead, Mars Volta
Favourite book: Fear and loathing in Las Vegas
Favourite film: Napoleon Dynamite (for comedy) or Dead Mans Shoes
Favourite TV show: Celebrity juice (likes Keith Lemon), IT Crowd and Mighty Boosh (likes comedy shows)
Favourite person of all time: Jimmy Hendrix
Education history: Studied graphic design BTEC. Did AS levels in art, photography, DT and geography
Other subjects of interest: history and geography (but didn't like it when they were just learning about soil)
Gigs attended: Leeds fest 08, local bands, Queen, Thin Lizzy and Deep Purple
Pet hates: Mathematicians and grammar/spelling mistakes
Fears: Heights, flying, and lots of other things
Goals in life: Would like a decent graphic design job, to have a bit of money and a nice car
Graphic Design related questions
Favourite font: Baskerville, Univers and Helvetica (generally likes sans serif fonts)
Preferred colour scheme: Likes bold colours such as cyan and magenta
Preferred layout: Not bothered, but not boring. Likes negative space
Preferred style: Likes a mix of drawing and design
Why a career in graphic design?: Liked illustration and fine art, but thought there would be less chance of a career in fine art, so chose graphic design after enjoying it at GCSE
Why Leeds College of Art?: Was given a prospectus, so came to look around and liked the course and good resources, also wanted to live in Leeds
Did you know anyone before starting the course?: Knew Marty from college
Ideal job: Would like to work for a graphic design company, as not too good with time management, interested in layout and editorial work.
PC or mac?: Has a PC but would like a mac eventually
Do you want your photo on layout?: Isn't bothered but doesn't like direct photographs of himself
In Design Workshop
Week One- The page I am required to create for the brief is A4, but I will print it on to an A3 sheet and trim it down.
- Create a new document (the page size is the printed, trimmed size). As you can't print right to the edge of a sheet of paper, you need to print on to a bigger sheet. The image should extend and be bigger than the paper size, so you don't get a white outline if you trim it wrong. This is the bleed. You have the option to add a guide, a 3mm guide is recommended. The slug is an area where printers marks can be added outside of your design.
- To add text, click the 'T', and click and drag to make a frame. To add dummy text to help make designing easier, click type- fill with placeholder text.
- If the text box is too small for the amount of text that there is, there will be a red cross on the bottom right hand corner of the text box. Click this, and then create a new box with the rest of the text.
- Create an empty text box, click the blue box on the top left hand corner of the box, and create a new box. This allows the text to flow from one box to another.
- To rotate a box, click on frame, and then click on the yellow box, and then drag.
- You can create a shape with the pen tool and fill this with text.
- When including an image you need to prepare this before hand to be the correct size, correct colour mode and correct file extension. The images that you will use in the Indesign document should be saved in the same file that the document is. Take the whole file to print with you.
- Click the rectangle with the cross in it, this tool allows you to make a frame for image. Click file - place image. Select image, click the circle, and re size.
- The links palette has a list of all imported images. The display performance alters the quality of how you see the images on in Indesign, making the document faster or slower to work with.
- The opacity can be changed by clicking window-effects.
- By pressing the 'W' on the keyboard, you can view the Indesign page in preview mode.
Layout
Week Two
- Create a text wrap to wrap the text around the frame. This works similar to how this feature works on Microsoft Word. Using it means that the image/frame won't obstruct the text. Window -> Text wrap -> options palette. It is recommended to add a small border around he edge, otherwise the right margin doesn't look right as the text is to close to the frame. You can also do this for pull quotes.
- For an image with transparency, wrap the text around the image shape. Change the contour options to alpha channel.
- For an image with transparency, wrap the text around the image shape. Change the contour options to alpha channel.
- To accurately position a ruler guider, drag the guide out, and select, then type the actual distance. You can also write the actual size of frames as well in the same way. X+Y field are position on page.
- To get the text exactly in the middle, make text frame the size of the page and align text to the centre. You can colour the back of a text frame if you want.
Re-creating an article
After learning more techniques for indesign, we were given a photocopy of an article, the images used and the CMYK codes of the colours, and were told to re-create this article. This allowed us to put into practice what we had learnt. It was quite challenging and took quite a long time as I had never had any experience of indesign before this induction, but now, I feel a bit better about what I am doing and am eager to work on my own design so I can add creativity rather than just copying a design. Here are some screenshots of my progress, and a photograph of the original article.
- To make an image transparent in indesign, place it and select image and open window -> effects and change the blend mode to multiply.
- To place a transparent image, you need to make it transparent in photo shop and save it as a .psd file. You need to make sure the image is a new layer and not the background layer as this layer can't support transparency.
- Open object -> text frame options. Extend the text wrap to allow space for caption. You can choose in text frame options for a particular frame to ignore text wrap, and you can also divide a text frame into columns.
Re-created article
