Type Tools
Fall 2011

Type Tools

The purpose of this class is to teach design students the tools necessary to produce professional-quality printed mate­rials today, using primarily Adobe Indesign as a tool. We’ll cover some details of Adobe Illus­trator and Photoshop as well, but will generally focus on laying out elements in InDesign. We’ll weave in printing tech­niques and some of the more tech­nical aspects of digital and print production as well. Students at North­eastern should visit the syllabus page for addi­tional infor­mation. Anyone is welcome to follow along with the tuto­rials on the site, although they may some­times be missing some key points that students otherwise get in the physical classes.

Recent Tutorials

Tentative Schedule

1

 

Intro to the class: InDesign uses and overview

An InDesign primer: Basics of panel loca­tions in both programs. New document settings. A very brief overview of every­thing you need to know to get started. Page setup (margins, folios, columns). Preview modes. Text boxes. Tools panels. Styles panels (overview). Align/Pathfinder. Flowing in text to multiple pages.
*Pack­aging your files and exporting for older versions

   Project 1
Grab the text to a book from Project Gutenberg. Take 20 pages worth of text starting with the first chapter and set them in your book as covered in class. Don’t worry about any title pages or the table of contents yet—just set the chapter text.

2

 

InDesign book setup (continued)

Quick on exporting your InDesign document to a PDF (we’ll do this at the beginning of class). More infor­mation about para­graph and char­acter styles. Adding page numbers. General tips and tricks for getting around InDesign. Pack­aging your files.

 

Project 1 (cont’d)

  1. Add at least 4 unique para­graph styles to your document (used to style different headers, or “heads”).
  2. Create another para­graph style for your page numbers. Use the master pages to add page numbers to each of your pages.
  3. Find a high res photo (at least 200 DPI at full size) for your book cover. It should fit the size of your book plus the bleeds at full resolution.

3

 

InDesign and Photoshop: working with images for print.

Getting the correct image reso­lution and sizes for your printed piece in both InDesign and Photoshop. Placing images with options. General knowledge of working with images in InDesign: masking, resizing, placing in shapes, text wrap, override text wrap. Object styles overview.

 

Project 1 (cont’d)
Place images in your book. Make sure you meet the following requirements.

  1. Place at least 4 images in your document.
  2. Should have a full-bleed image on the cover.
  3. Place at least one of your images on the page and use the direct select tool to mask part of it.
  4. Place at least one image on the page INSIDE of another shape (thereby masking part of the image).
  5. Use object styles to change the look of elements on the page—apply these both to images and other “drawn” elements like boxes or lines.

4

 

InDesign: Using Master Pages and Sections

Folios, numbering and sections. How to print with bleeds and crops. Creating multiple nested masters.

 

Project 1 (cont’d)
Continue to edit your previous assignment:

  1. Add at least two sets of master pages. One of them should be based on one of the others so that it inherits the styles from the parent master.
  2. Create a new section (for page numbering) beginning with the first page of text in the first chapter. Create a new section for each chapter you have.
  3. Create running heads in your document with chapter (section) markers for each section.

5

 

Color management and other important info

Pantone? CMYK? RGB? OMG? Info panel.

 

Project 2
Do a little back­ground research on topics. Email me your top 3 pref­er­ences for a topic BY Tuesday, February 14th, NO LATER THAN 5PM. I’ll email you back the topic you get based on what everyone else in the class chooses. One topic per class, first-come, first-served. Then, complete the topic proposal section of this assignment (written) for the next class on February 23rd. You should include your research with this proposal.

We’re here in the semester. 

We have completed the classes above. The above assignment is due for next week. All work below is tentative and you should not proceed until instructed to do so in class. Thanks

Mark your calendar: There will be no class on February 16th.
We’ll pick it up next week (February 23rd) with the content below…

6

 

InDesign: Object and Table Styles, Misc. Features.

Inserting glyphs, using the info and story panels. Indents and tabs in styles box.

 

Add some graphic elements (drawn, vectors or photos) to your mock book design and apply object styles to them.

7

 

Printing basics reviewed

Correct output to PDF. Marks/bleeds/crops. Color Settings. Compression settings. Overview of print booklet.

  

8

 

Working on big projects

How to use the story editor and other time-saving tips.

  

9

 

Units of measurement for designers

The truth about picas, pixels, ems, DPI, PPI and the many other acronyms you’ll hear in the “real world”.

  

10

 

Output for Profes­sional Printing

How to make friends with your printer, and why there’s often a love-hate rela­tionship. Check your links, colors, preflight.

  

11

 

Output for Profes­sional Printing

How to make friends with your printer, and why there’s often a love-hate rela­tionship. Check your links, colors, preflight.

  

12

 

Help with your projects

Indi­vidual assis­tance as needed.