3. To begin our time with the software, we sat down as a class and
listened to Dave who introduced us to the software and what features
and tools it has at its disposal for the user. We went over the basic tools
and were told how to use them one by one, coming back to our macs
between each explanation to try them for ourselves. Examples of the
tools that we looked at would be ’Text Wrapping’, ‘Gridding’, and ’box
formatting’.
Introduction
4. Text Wrapping
Text wrapping is used when your product has other media on the page
such as photos or screenshots. It is used to move any text that may
otherwise be layered underneath a picture. Instead of letting it get
taken over, it adjusts the lines so that they neatly wrap around the
media which makes the overall design look more professional and tidy.
Using this tool worked rather well in both my mockup design and my
practice pages that I created as you can see in the next slide. I feel that
text wrapping may prove to be very useful in future projects and I also
believe that I can use it at a decent standard to keep my articles in
check and looking smart while also looking more modern than that of
the standard book design.
5. Text Wrapping
Picture Box Formatting
In the lesson, we also
learnt how to change the
properties of each piece of
writing to fit the page and
designs we wanted and
also to create a more
realistic vibe such as the
oversized capital letter at
the beginning of each
subject’s paragraph. We
were also able to adjust
properties such as the
writing’s distance from the
pictures that it was
wrapped around and the
spacing between each
word in case gaps needed
filling or maybe even
creating.
6. Adding Media
Photographs and screenshots are arguably one of the most important
aspects of a magazine’s design and help a lot with both providing
readers with a frame of reference and keeping them interested too. It
was for this reason that we next learnt how to add media into our
InDesign layouts. This would definitely help in many future projects to
come even beyond this course as almost all medias use photographs to
express and emphasize their points. Thanks to that lesson, I am now
able to add pictures of a high enough quality into different shaped
boxes which has the ability to bring a whole article or story in a
magazine together.
7. Article Layouts
The next thing that I have learnt from the past couple of college days is
how to create and properly design and arrange a page of text. To do
this, we were given the name of a website which gives the user
randomly generated Latin paragraphs which, from a distance, can
hardly be distinguished from a normal English paragraph. We used this
tool to fill our InDesign pages and then we formatted them into
columns. An example of what I am writing about is shown on the next
slide along. This is good for my future products and will help me
accurately and efficiently create a professional looking design in the
future instead of just placing text boxes around the screen and trying to
align them all myself.
8. Note how each
paragraph does not
overlap a certain
point, instead they
are neatly packed into
a column and spaced
just right so that no
words get
hyphenated.
9. Mock Designs
To finish off the day of InDesign work, we began to make our own mock
designs of our own magazines. We needed to combine all of our skills
of which we had learnt the whole day such as text wrapping and adding
medias to create a realistic looking magazine page design. This was
good for my skills in both Photoshop and InDesign as making mocks of
the real thing ensured that I would have lots of practice in the software
and could show that I had taken in what Dave wanted me to learn
throughout the day. You will find a screenshot of one of the finished
pages that I designed towards the end of the day in the next slide.
12. Favourite Website
Personally, I believe that Wix is the best website due to the simplicity,
efficiency and the wide range of options available to the user. There is
nothing that the user cannot figure out themselves and I managed to
make a quick mock-up of a potential website with multiple pages in
about half an hour. WordPress, on the other hand, had many good
choices in design but the interface was rather confusing and half way
through creating a mock-up website my work reset and disappeared.
Wix gives the user more freedom and choices which opens up the user
to many more possibilities in designing the website that they have in
their heads. The following slides will go into further detail about both
websites’ advantages and disadvantages.
13. Wix Overview
Straight away upon starting my design of my website, Wix began asking
questions about what I was potentially creating to help fine-tune my
experience and help give me a smooth experience while designing the
webpages.
14. Once I had supplied the websites with the answers it
needed, it gave me a template to start editing and adding
my own work into. The fact everything was prebuilt for
me helped a lot and it was made even simpler with the
adding menu which clearly laid everything out for me in a
neatly formed list shown below. Within just over half an
hour, I had made two pages for a website based off of my
magazine idea. I found it extremely fast and easy and the
instructions were clearly laid out for me so I had no
trouble finding my way around. I was able to add a
moving background, text boxes, subscription boxes, etc to
make the design look more realistic and professional.
15.
16.
17. Overview of WordPress
WordPress gave me a much less pleasant experience
while creating a web-page. To begin with, it was all
smooth with the same questions being asked as Wix in
order to fine tune my page and give me potential
templates but soon enough I found my first issue. Many
of the features in the website are not free and you can
get hit by a lot of ads for the website trying to get you
to use a paid plan. I also encountered another problem
with the website by accident. Half-way through
designing my page, the design just disappeared and I
lost all of my progress and had to start again. A
screenshot of this is found on the next slide.
18. What I was greeted with after almost completing my design.
