Sem 1 Week 13: Introduction to Adobe Indesign

This week, we learnt how to use Adobe Indesign. It was an important lesson because we need to learn how to use this software well before we start on our CA2 which is to design a brochure. The tools are similar to Adobe Illustrator, just that it is more convenient for me to write words.

Before using the software, we edited an image on Photoshop first. Below is the result of our first activity. It was supposed to be "Heaven & Earth", but we were free to play around with the tools hence I typed my name instead.

We then proceeded to execute our first brochure, in which the content is ready for us to use. 

The last picture above is the final product of our brochure. The blue lines are the guides for me to check the grids and alignments of the brochure. It can be made invisible and will not appear after printing.

This week's lesson was tough at first because of the editing of the photo. We edited the image on photoshop before opening it in Indesign. However, I could really feel the sense of achievement after completing the brochure at the end of the day although we only followed through the lesson.

The tutorial made me consider a few things to be kept in mind while doing my CA2. I would need to ensure that the font is appropriate, followed by the spacing of the fonts. Lastly, I need to ensure that I deselect the hyphenate bar. I prefer my texts to be non-hyphenated as it will be easier to read.

However, this activity made me realise that it is alright if my brochure is simple, as long as it is neat and the key message of the brochure is brought across. As long as the brochure design is simple and appropriate, it will be fine. This leads me to decide on a simple and neat corporate brochure, instead of one with fancy designs.

19/07/13: Visual Communication Week 14

This week we were taught to design a brochure. After doing some consultations for our CA assignments, we learned about effective brochure designs that will appeal to clients. Then, we learnt how to use several tools on InDesign software and created a travel brochure using the software mentioned.

1. Effective brochure designs

During the first part of our lesson, we learnt that there are 8 elements of an effective brochure design as stated below.

• Meets clients' needs
• Meets branding guidelines
• Has your "valuable input"
• Has an attention-grabbing cover using visuals or header
• Has strong images and graphics
• Clear and compelling content
• Unique selling point (UOP)
• Call to action

For our upcoming CA, I believe that it would be wise to concentrate on the design aspects such as having an attention-grabbing cover and having strong images and graphics. This is because we will be assessed through our design skills and the contents of the brochure have already been given.

The degree as to how presentable and nice a brochure is is subjective. However, there are certain guidelines which ensures that a corporate brochure is within acceptable range in terms of how it looks. For example, I think it is important to keep the brochure design simple and professional. To achieve this, the main theme of the brochure is important as it will influence the colour theme, fonts and pictures used.

An example of a corporate brochure

The image above is an example of my personal favourite corporate brochure. It has a neat and defined layout. The colours red, white and black are the main colour theme, making it look professional. The content does not seem to chunky or wordy as they are separated into smaller paragraphs with pictures in between. This appeals to readers more as it does not look boring. However, I do not like red page where the font is white. This is because there is too much contrast and it might be difficult for readers to read.

The 8 elements shared drove me to consider the theme of my brochure carefully. Now, I am certain that I would like to keep my brochure design simple and neat. Although keeping a design to be simple and neat may sound easy, it is actually difficult as I need to think of a way to make it outstanding despite it being simple. This week's tutorial sure helped me a lot!

2. Designing a travel brochure

I had some difficulties using this software along the way as it was our first time doing a whole brochure on this software. Today, we learnt how to import images to our brochure and to import a newly-added font. Initially, I had some difficulties importing the images at first because I could not fit the entire picture into the frame, hence half of the picture was gone. In the end, I realise there were two separate borders and guidelines for me to follow and that I could click to resize the picture to fit it in the frame. 

This week's lesson was not content-heavy but I learnt a lot while going through the activity for the InDesign software. I realise that there are more things learnt and I got to jot down notes lest I forget what was thought! Initially, I did not jot down notes as I believed whatever has been practiced will not be forgotten. However, Ms Li Sar suggested that we take down notes and I realise how much it meant afterwards when I went home to try the software again!

Semester 1 Week 12: Introduction to Photoshop 2

This week, we learnt to use more Photoshop tools to edit images; namely the magic wand tool. We also learnt to flip the image, scale, rotate and also adjust its opacity. Creating layers and applying texture were also covered in this lesson.

Firstly, we polished our skills in cutting out an image from its background using the quick selection tool. We also learnt when to use the magic wand tool at the appropriate times, which is when the background of the image has a colour which is starkly different. As seen from the image above, I have cut out the background of the different vegetables before placing them on the chopping board. It was a little more challenging to edit the image of the lettuce as compared to other vegetables because its edges are not smooth curves.

Then, we edited images of fishes and placed them in the fish bowl which was given a solid colour as its content. To make the picture look more realistic, the opacity of the water was decreased. If we compare the two pictures above, the one on the right looks more realistic because the opacity of the water has been decreased.

Lastly, we learned how to layer an image on top of another and used the multiply layer to create an image. For example, the image above was created from layering a picture of a crushed paper on a car. 

I cleaned the edges of the car to delete the parts of the paper off the car to ensure that the image looks realistic.

Out of the three, my favourite is the last image. I never knew that it was possible to layer an image on top of another to create such an effect. It is also not much of a hassle to clean up the sides using the eraser tool to ensure that the image of the crushed paper is not seen off the car. I look forward to discovering other pictures that can be layered on top of others to create many different effects.