adobe iN design
Let's make it as a professional - close that Photoshop
Photoshop is great if you doing a web, if you are designing for print, InDesign is better. Do you know why? Well, basically, Photoshop is bitmap program which means one thing. DO NOT STRECH otherwise it will pixelated. On the other hand, Illustrator and InDesign are vector programs which allow you changing the size of your images and typography. Isn't it great? Also, bare in mind RGB and CMYK regime. Do not believe what you see on screen - even salt looks like sugar.
Even though I have to admit, creating in Photoshop is much easier for me these days because I got used to it. Basically, what I am doing I know it is not right, and in professional world it would be big NO NO, here I am honestly describing my way which takes more steps that are necessary but it works for me.
My first step is always hand rendering, to brainstorming, come up with some ideas and also sum up my ideas to few of my final drafts. Then I open Photoshop where I can manipulate with images. In these tasks which we are given for a week time, I am doing image manipulation. For my main brief I intend to create my own imaginary so I will probably skip this part with Photoshop. When I adjust all my imaginary I need and see if my layout draft works, I open the InDesign where I put all my bits and bobs together - FONTS ARE IMPORTED FROM ILLUSTRATOR OR CREATED STRAIGHT IN INDESIGN ! (we do not want pixels to be seen, you know ... )
These two are from Photoshop where I was playing with my images I have found to find the right composition. I was also playing with color scheme and mainly with title. I also did a little mock up in magazine just to get the idea if it works or not. To be fair I like this combination, but there was something missing. I tried to change to color and instead of "daylight" use "nightlight" atmosphere. Let's see what I have created.
I am very pleased with this idea of night camping. Now, I put it into InDesign - except the text which I created in InDesign. InDesign is great because it is a program for things to go to print. In Settings I can set the page size - in this case I am working with A4 page, for my main brief I will be probably working with A5 format as many school do not have access to A3= formats and it is also more expensive for them.A5 format is great size for children as it is not enormously big. Next feature in InDesign is columns and Margins which is very helpful tool as you keep the nice and tidy grid.Bleed I am using usually 3 mm - it is space where image goes outside the set size just in case misleading laser when it is cut.
Then I am ready to place all my elements that I created in other programs. Always check if your images are CMYK and have resolution 300dpi (dots per inch). Go to File> Place > Choose your elements.
DO NOT STRECH YOUR IMAGES. Use scale.
