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. 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.

   

Project 1
Grab the text to a book from Project Gutenberg. Get the text from either the plain text or the HTML file and copy and paste it into a simple text file. (On a Mac, you can use the TextEdit app)

Don’t actually put it into your book just yet, we’ll do this in class.

2

 

InDesign book setup (continued)

Flowing in text to multiple pages. Quick overview on exporting your InDesign document to a PDF (we’ll do this at the beginning of class) and printing with bleeds and crops. Para­graph and char­acter styles.

 

Project 1 (cont’d)

  1. Flow your text into your book.
  2. Add at least 4 unique para­graph styles to your document (used to style different headers, or “heads”).
  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. You don’t need to add this yet.

 

3

 

  

InDesign: Using Master Pages and Sections

Folios, numbering and sections. Creating multiple nested masters. Pack­aging your files and exporting for older versions.

*PLEASE make sure you put your homework from the previous week into DATA 1. You’ll need to zip (compress) your entire folder, containing the InDesign document, images and text. Name the file like this: “lastname_firstname.zip”

 

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 another para­graph style for your page numbers. Use the master pages to add page numbers to each of your pages.
  3. 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.
  4. Create running heads in your document with chapter (section) markers for each section.

4

 

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 (so set up your document bleeds accordingly)
  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.
  

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!

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 ???, 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.

6 

 

 

Preflight: 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.

 

  

7

 

Printing Reference Guide Project

Discuss paper, binding, margins, etc. options for the project as a group. Decide on the format and distribute to class.

Download the printing project require­ments here:
[TypeTools-GuideAs.pdf]

 

Continue with research and produce any illus­tra­tions or photos that you may need for your subject.

8

 

Column and grid discussion: content dictates form.

How to make columns and grids in InDesign. Work on your books.

  

9

 

Project work in class

Indi­vidual help with projects and discussion of topics.

  

10

 

TBD

  

11

 

TBD

  

12

 

TBD

  

 

13

 

 

Presen­ta­tions

Your finals are due today—you’ll be presenting your topic in class.

  

14

 

Presen­ta­tions

Addi­tional presentations.