I decided to take a different approach with this project, as compared to the four previous ones. Prior to doing any form of research or reading the articles, I sat down with a #2 pencil and vomited forth some generic page layouts. I didn’t want to have a single idea being dominant and narrowing my vision; I wanted a squeaky clean slate at the outset. I produced a page full (about 20 layouts) and then sat down with the articles. While I was reading I jotted down keywords in the margin that were used to do images searches. I grabbed various images that I thought jived with the theme of the articles and made a master Photoshop file. In my search I also found a header/masthead example that I thought looked super sexy. Now that I knew the punch of the articles and had an idea of what images I would be using, I went back to my sketchpad and selected which roughs could work. I then moved into InDesign.
I’m beginning to feel rather adept at this new (for me) program. I created 4 (5?) different paragraph styles that kept evolving yet stream lined my work. I did the rough layout with text frames and then copy-and-pasted all the text in from Word. I’d say that I actually had more time this project (as compared to the single-page newsletter) to be more nit-picky about the details such as leading, kerning, widows etc. I was also having a lot more fun with this project; not as much trail and error as the first time through.
I feel like I learned quite a bit through this experience. I learned how to make Clipping Paths in Photoshop and import them into InDesign. I used text wraps for both images and pull quotes. I also discovered the importance of using layers in InDesign. I was having issues with stacks of images and text and then not being able to select what I wanted. I finally broke the piece up into background, image, and text layers so I could lock one while messing around with another.
I’m comfortable with my final submission. I would like more time to finesse it a bit more (I think that there is too much space on some pages) and also work on my “Version 2.0”.
I decided to take a different approach with this project, as compared to the four previous ones. Prior to doing any form of research or reading the articles, I sat down with a #2 pencil and vomited forth some generic page layouts. I didn’t want to have a single idea being dominant and narrowing my vision; I wanted a squeaky clean slate at the outset. I produced a page full (about 20 layouts) and then sat down with the articles. While I was reading I jotted down keywords in the margin that were used to do images searches. I grabbed various images that I thought jived with the theme of the articles and made a master Photoshop file. In my search I also found a header/masthead example that I thought looked super sexy. Now that I knew the punch of the articles and had an idea of what images I would be using, I went back to my sketchpad and selected which roughs could work. I then moved into InDesign.
I’m beginning to feel rather adept at this new (for me) program. I created 4 (5?) different paragraph styles that kept evolving yet stream lined my work. I did the rough layout with text frames and then copy-and-pasted all the text in from Word. I’d say that I actually had more time this project (as compared to the single-page newsletter) to be more nit-picky about the details such as leading, kerning, widows etc. I was also having a lot more fun with this project; not as much trail and error as the first time through.
I feel like I learned quite a bit through this experience. I learned how to make Clipping Paths in Photoshop and import them into InDesign. I used text wraps for both images and pull quotes. I also discovered the importance of using layers in InDesign. I was having issues with stacks of images and text and then not being able to select what I wanted. I finally broke the piece up into background, image, and text layers so I could lock one while messing around with another.
I’m comfortable with my final submission. I would like more time to finesse it a bit more (I think that there is too much space on some pages) and also work on my “Version 2.0”.
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