InDesign DTP Monthly Poster –
I have had brief encounters with InDesign before as I used it in College as I used a variety of different tutorials.
Useful Hints and Tips:
/ To start off this tutorial I need an A4 page set at portrait, this was because I was creating this document for print therefore I needed to ensure this is what the “Intent” is set at. For the first few exercises I had to have facing pages set to on. This was because at first I was just required to practise using the different tools within InDesign. This was to ensure that I had time to practise using the tools before demonstrating our newly learnt skills within a layout.
/ A key thing to remember is that when creating items for print, is that when you want an image to cover the edges of a page it is good practise to set a bleed margin. This margin lets you know how far off the designated area the image is covering and it comes in useful when the article for example, may need cropping down from a larger paper sizing.
Now we have reached the layout stage of the workshop we are setting the new document file to not have facing pages, as I want just the one page. If I were creating a two-page spread for example I can select this option and it will work out the pages for me.
Useful Hints and Tips:
/ Adobe InDesign is a desktop publishing software application produced by Adobe. It can be used to create works such as posters, flyers, brochures, magazines, newspapers and books. InDesign can also publish content suitable for tablet devices in conjunction with Adobe Digital Publishing Suite. Graphic designers and production artists are the principal users, creating and laying out periodical publications, posters, and print media.
It also supports export to EPUB and SWF formats to create e-books and digital publications, including digital magazines, and content suitable for consumption on tablet computers. In addition, InDesign supports XML, style sheets and other coding markup, making it suitable for exporting tagged text content for use in other digital and online formats. The Adobe InCopy word processor uses the same formatting engine as InDesign.
/ It is good practise to always keep the body text in a newspaper for example, set to one positioning throughout the whole document as this creates a unified feel to the newspaper. However in some cases this may be broken, particularly in those where designers aim to “break” the rules and within magazines you may find different articles alter the positioning of such. Though where this is the case it is usually clearly shown that the text belongs to a different article, usually by starting the article upon a different page.
Master Pages –
It is always important to remember that if you want to create a set of guidelines upon your document which will appear throughout then you need to do so while on the “Master” page. The master page dictates to all other pages where text, images and guides should be place. Though if you need to move away from this at any point you can always right-click on the selected page (make sure you are on one of the individual pages at this point) and select “Override All Master Page Items”. This allows you to alter the individual page’s layout to your heart’s content. Furthermore if you require more then one saved layout to be applied to a multitude of pages simply create a new master page and apply to those as appropriate.
It is always important to remember that if you want to create a set of guidelines upon your document which will appear throughout then you need to do so while on the “Master” page. The master page dictates to all other pages where text, images and guides should be place. Though if you need to move away from this at any point you can always right-click on the selected page (make sure you are on one of the individual pages at this point) and select “Override All Master Page Items”. This allows you to alter the individual page’s layout to your heart’s content. Furthermore if you require more then one saved layout to be applied to a multitude of pages simply create a new master page and apply to those as appropriate.
Now we have reached the layout stage of the workshop we are setting the new document file to not have facing pages, as I want just the one page. If I were creating a two-page spread for example I can select this option and it will work out the pages for me.
Overall, I thought that this tutorial was sort of easy for me, because I did have a little prior knowledge of InDesign. However, I did also find it a little difficult because I kept forgetting little bits, or I got distracted.