Introduction to creative suite 2015

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September 2015

CREATIVE SUITEGUIDE

In-Design, Illustrator & Photoshop guide forFashion Management & Marketing Students

2015

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Introduction

What is Adobe Creative Suite?

What is In-Design?

Linked Images in InDesign

Getting Started with Indesign (linked images & saving to folders)

Opening up InDesign & the Basics

Indesign Tool Panel

Shortcuts

Creating Master Pages

Page Numbers

Page Margins

Paragraph Styles

Adding Text to your Page

Hyphenated Text

Changing text from Lower to Upper Case (& vice versa)

Glyphs

Spell Checking

Adding Images and Editing Images in In-Design

Drawing Shapes in In-Design and Editing them

Moving Images

Adding Shapes to your Page

Colouring and Editing Shapes

Introduction to Drawing Graphs

Price/Style Matrix Graph

Price Brand Matrix Graph

Psychographic Profile Graph

CONTENTS PAGE

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Using the Pen Tool to Create Curved Lines

Saving your Document ready for Printing (PDF’s)

Optimizing PDF’s (Making PDF files smaller)

What is Illustrator?

Getting started with Illustrator

Illustrator Tools Panel

Adding Text to your Page

Outlining Text

Adding Images to your Illustrator File

Using the Pen Tool

Editing a Hand Drawn/Vector Line

Making an Image Transparent

Colouring in a Hand Drawn Image

Saving and Exporting Hand Drawn (Pen Tool) Images

Using the Align Window

Distributing Objects Evenly

Adding Dots, Arrowheads etc to the End of Lines and Make Line Dashed etc...

Introduction to Photoshop

Opening up Photoshop

Photoshop Tool Panel

Cutting Images out in Photoshop

The Magic Wand Tool

Rasterizing Images

The Polygon Lasso Tool

The Pen Tool in Photoshop

Adding or Subtracting Areas from the Selection Area

Feathering (Softening) the Edge of an Image

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Saving as a PNG (Retaining the Transparent Background of an Image)

Checking the Size of an Image in Photoshop

Graphics Good Practise

Saving Photographic Images from WGSN

Downloading and opening Fashion CAD’s from WGSN

Downloading/Saving images from the WEB

Finding Large Images (1000 + px ) on Google

Finding the Size of Images found on Blogs & Websites

Taking & Using Screen Grabs/Print Screens

Saving Photoshop files to add to an Indesign Project

Saving Hi-Res Jpeg’s in Photoshop

Installing Downloaded Fonts

Fonts and Text - Good Practise!

Spell Checking

Choosing a Report Layout

Saving your Final Project

Pre Hand in Project Check List

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INTRODUCTION

This guide aims to support your CAD learning alongside your regular CAD lessons. The pack contains everything that you will be taught in classes so you can re-cap and practise all these skills in your own time! You can widen your skills too by following online tutorials

that will be recommended within your classes.

Any trouble shooting or frequently asked questions should be answeredwithin the pack too!

Lots of skills are applicable for more than one of the creative suite programmes seethese symbols in the list of contents to see what programme each section/skill

applies to.

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WHAT IS ADOBE CREATIVE SUITE?

Adobe Creative suite is a package of COMPUTER AIDED DESIGN programmes (often referred to as CAD) that can be used to create websites, magazines, animation, graphics, apps, pretty much anything!!! There are lots of programmes within the suite for you to learn and explore but the main ones that you will be using during your three years as a FMM student will be Photoshop, Illustrator and InDesign. So what’s the difference between these three programmes and which programme should I be using for what? Also, why can’t I just use Powerpoint to create PDF projects?

PHOTOSHOP

Photoshop does pretty much what it says on the can - it edits photos! You should be using Photoshop to cut out, edit and maybe even collage photographic images. These images should then get saved somewhere before you insert them into your InDesign project. Photoshop works with Pixels which is how a photograph is made - basically lots of tiny square blocks of colour that make up an image. A photographic image can be decreased in size but NOT increased. Trying to make a photographic image bigger than its original size results in pixelation which is where an image becomes blurry and unclear (pixilated) This is something you really have to avoid in your projects, not only because it looks bad, but you can end up loosing marks too. There is lots of information on how to avoid this given to you in your CAD lessons as well as further on in this document.

ILLUSTRATOR

Illustrator is a really creative program that lets you draw things from scratch! You will use this programme if you want to design your own logo, draw or edit a CAD flat etc.. Basically anything you want to create yourself that’s NOT a photographic image will be created in Illustrator. This will make more sense in your CAD lessons!!!

INDESIGN

Indesign is where you bring everything together to create your projects. Any photographic images (from photoshop) or your own images/CAD’s (from Illustrator) will be inserted into Indesign where you will add text to create your PDF project!

Why can’t I use powerpoint to do the same thing?

Powerpoint is a programme that you will also be using a lot to create visual presentations but should not be used to make printed PDF projects. You are very limited with how creative you can be with layouts in Powerpoint, thus it not being recommended for your projects. It also becomes a very slow project to use once it starts becoming too big and containing a lot of images! Though Indesign seems quite difficult to use at first DON’T give up on it! Keep persisting with Indesign in your own time and in CAD classes and by the time you have finished your first project you will have come to grips with it and feel confident using it! Also, it’s an amazing skill to add to your CV, even as an intern, which puts you way ahead of lots of other students!

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InDesign is a professional design program which allows you to create professional visual projects, books, magazines etc... Most magazines and books you read will have originally been created in this program.

There are a few things to understand about InDesign before you get started.

WHAT IS INDESIGN?

LINKED IMAGES

InDesign uses a process called ‘linking images’ which prevents file sized from becoming too big. Your projects will all be very visual based and contain lots of images making your projects large in size (megabytes!) To prevent your files from becoming too large to open, scroll through and edit (thus being slow to use) images are ‘linked’ back to the folder you saved them in to help prevent this.

This means...

All the images in your document will be linked to the folder you saved them in so that when you see them in your document they will be preview versions. When you get to finally saving your final InDesign project ready for print you will save it as a PDF - when you do this the file will link back all the original images and embed them into your file so it prints them out in their original high quality format.

Before you even open InDesign it’s advisable to create a folder where you will save everything for your project to. This will help prevent fonts and images becoming lost and creating a ‘missing link.’ Images that are marked as missing links will print out really pixelated so it’s important you check and avoid this.

If you are going to be working on a mixture of computers e.g. at home and in University - it’s best to save your project to a memory stick or portable hardrive so all your images, fonts, files for a project stay together!

However, always regularly back up your work too - computers are never 100% reliable!!!

E.G.

GETTING STARTED

Create a folder on your memory stick/hardrive with the project name

1. Inside the folder create three other folders titled Fonts, Images & Word Documents

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WARNING:

If you move images from the folder you have saved them to after you have placed them in your InDesign project, they will become ‘unlinked’ and will no longer appear clearly in your document. When you print your project that image will print highly pixelated too.

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OPENING UP INDESIGN & THE BASICS

How to open a new InDesign document and add and edit pictures and text within the document.

Open up InDesign by clicking on icon on your tool bar or in your applications folder.

Go to File in the top menu bar and select Open from the drop-down menu.

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This window will then appear.

Select your preferences e.g. number of pages, landscape/portrait etc...then press OK.

If you are unsure of how many pages etc you need this can be edited at a later stage by going to Pages Window and clicking on insert page icon.

Select number ofpages

(this can beedited later)

Papersize

Landscape orPortrait

Insert pageicon

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Set the margin by unchecking this icon.

It’s advisable to set the margins to these amounts

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Once you have created a new document save it straight away! Go to FILE on the top drop down menu then click SAVE AS from the drop down menu. Give the document a name and save it to the folder you have already created. See Page 9 for more details about creating folders.

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Now whenever you add more text and images to your document you can save regularly by going to FILE and clicking SAVE from the drop-down menu or even easier by clicking on the ‘cmd’ (to the left and the right of the

spacebar) button and pressing ‘s’ at the same time! This is called a ‘shortcut’.

The command or ‘cmd’ button

Your saved InDesignproject

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USING THE INDESIGN TOOLS PANEL

The ‘tools panel’ is where you will find everything you need to start creating your document. Here are the most useful tools to begin with:

SELECTION TOOLS DIRECT SELECTIONTOOL

TEXT TOOL

SHAPE TOOL(Click and hold down on icon to

select fromdifferent shapes)

(Allows you to move the page around to view different areas. You can do the same by holding down

the space bar)

HAND TOOL

(Allows you to create text boxes, create and edit text)

ZOOM TOOL(You can either select an area to

zoom into or repeatedly click on page to gradually zoom.

Alternatively hold down the ‘cmd’ key and press - to zoom out & + to zoom in)

(Allows you to click on a page element and copy it e.g. text style or

colour)

EYE DROPPER TOOL

Shows the fill colourof an object. Shows the outline colour

of an object.

USEFUL SHORTCUTSThere are lots of keyboard shortcuts to use to make things easier similar to the ‘cmd’ and ‘s’ to save instead of

going through all the drop down menus.Here are some of the most useful ones to get started:

Hold cmd & s Hold cmd & c Hold cmd & v Hold cmd & - Hold cmd & +Hold cmd & gHold cmd & dHold cmd & i

= save= copy= paste= zoom out= zoom in= group= place object= spell check

KEEPING OBJECTS SCALED

Hold shift while making shapes bigger and smaller to keep them scaled.

STRAIGHT LINE TOOL

All the available shortcuts are listed in the drop down menu beside the command.

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CREATING A MASTER PAGE DOCUMENT

If you want to have certain elements to appear on every page E.G. a border, page number, a logo etc... You can make a MASTER PAGE DOCUMENT that will make these elements appear consistently throughout your document.

You can create a MASTER PAGE LAYOUT from your PAGE WINDOW...

Click on this small arrow and select ‘NEW MASTER...’

from the slide out menu

This window will then appear.....

Give your master page a name & click OK.

Your master page will then appear in the master page section...

Double click on the page icon and a clear double

page will open up.

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ADDING ELEMENTS TO YOUR MASTER PAGE DOCUMENT

Add elements such as borders, icons logos etc... to your ‘master page document’ that you want to appear on every page of your main document. Once you have added everything you want onto the master page - drag the master page onto your main document pages.

E.G.

Drag this page with your mouse from here

to here.

ADDING PAGE NUMBERS TO YOUR DOCUMENT

You add page numbers to your document in the ‘master page’ layout as well.

WARNING:

Make sure you double click back onto your main pages to carry on working in your main document.

MASTER DOCUMENT

MAIN DOCUMENT

Create a small text box and place it onto the left page of the master document in the position you want the page number to be.

Insert the character ‘a’ into the box then select the font and size that you want the page number to appear as.

Once you are happy with the size and font make sure the letter ‘a’ is highlighted then go to ‘TYPE’ from the top menu then select ‘INSERT SPECIAL CHARACTER’ from the drop down menu, then select ‘MARKERS’ from the slide out menu then finally select, ‘CURRENT PAGE NUMBER’ from the slide out menu.

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Double click here towork on your project!

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4. Now create another text box selecting the same font and size as the previous page and place the character ‘b’ in it. Place this on the right page (preferably in the mirror location of the left page)

Now go to ‘TYPE’ from the top menu then select ‘INSERT SPECIAL CHARACTER’ from the drop down menu, then select ‘MARKERS’ from the slide out menu then finally select, ‘NEXT PAGE NUMBER’ from the slide out menu.

Drag the master page into your main document and page numbers should appear!

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SETTING UP MARGINS

You should get into the habit of setting up margins for your InDesign documents. These will guide you where to safely place images and text on your pages so they don’t get cropped when printing. It also allows you make sure no text gets clipped into the centre of your document if you are getting it professionally bound etc...

To set margins go to LAYOUT on the top menu then select MARGINS AND COLUMNS from the drop down menu then this window will appear.

E.G.

Make sure you change all the numbers to match the above information to be safe!

If all the numbers are changing so that the same number appears in each box - unclick the icon that is circled in RED to stop this from happening.

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PARAGRAPH STYLES

Using ‘PARAGRAPH STYLES’ helps to automatically keep titles, sub titles and main text consistently in your chosen font rather than having to select your font each time you create a new text box!

1. You can find ‘PARAGRAPH STYLES’ by going to ‘WINDOW’ in the top menu then selecting ‘STYLES’ from the drop down menu then ‘PARAGRAPH STYLES’ from the slide out menu. A window will then appear like the below..

2. Click on the option in the box called [Basic Paragraph]+ and a larger window like below will open (see below)where you can select all the options you want for your basic body text preferences. You can create other styles for titles etc by clicking on the little small triangle (circled in red above) and creating a new paragraph style. You shouldn’t have more than two or maybe three font/paragraph style in any one document or it will become too confusing.

CHANGING FROM LOWER TO UPPER CASE TEXT

One of the most annoying things when writing text is when you have written a huge amount then realised you have Caps Lock on!!! This is easily amended in In-Design and Illustrator with the click of a button - no need to write it all out again!!! Simply highlight the text you want to amend then go to TYPE in the top menu then select CHANGE CASE in the drop down menu then whether you want it in LOWER, UPPER or TITLE CASE from the slide out menu.

Prevent text hyphenation

here

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ADDING TEXT TO YOUR PAGE

You can add text to your page by clicking on the text tool in your tools panel.

Select the text tool from the tools panel.

A cursor icon will appear. Use this cursor icon to draw a text box on the page.

You can then start writing or paste text and it will appear in the box you have created.

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You can move your text box around the page and change the shape and size of it by using SELECTION TOOL (The Black Arrow!) selection tool.

You can edit the text by re-selecting the text tool from the control panel then using the cursor to select the text you want to edit so it becomes highlighted.

Once you have the text selected a new control panel will appear at the top of the screen looking like this:

MOVING THE TEXT BOX:

EDITING TEXT:

You will mainly be using theleft side of this control panel.

Click to edit style of text e.g. bold, italic

etc...

Change font here

Font size Change to upper/lower

case text

Underlinetext

Align text e.g. centre, left etc...

Select the text again with the text tool cursor. You can then select a colour from the swatch window OR double click on the large text icon at the bottom of your tools panel and select a colour from the colour picker window that pops up.

CHANGE TEXT COLOUR

E.G.

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HYPHENATED TEXT:

Sometimes when you are writing long paragraphs of text, InDesign automatically hyphenates long words onto the line below which looks scruffy! To stop this, go to WINDOWS on the top menu panel and select TYPE & TABLES from the drop down menu then click on PARAGRAPH from the slide out menu.

If you are using paragraph styles you should have ticked the box that prevents this from happening throughout the document. See page 16 for more details.

This window will then appear.

Un-check this box to stop this from happening!

COPYING THE SAME STYLE TEXT FROM SOMEWHERE ELSE ON THE PAGE:

If you have written some text and you want to match it to the same style text that appears somewhere else in you document you can do so using the eyedropper tool. Firstly select the text you want to edit with the text tool cursor. Then select the EYEDROPPER TOOL from the tools panel then use the eye dropper tool to click on the text you want to copy. Your text should then change to be exactly the same!

This is very useful for titles etc...

GLYPHS

Sometimes you may need added symbols from you font that don’t automatically appear on your keyboard.E.g. ® ° © € ª » and foreign letters etc. You can find these symbols by going to ‘TYPE’ on the top drop down menu, then selecting ’GLYPHS’ from the drop down menu. A small window will appear with all the added symbols available for you font. Double click on the one you want to us and you can add it to your paragraph/sentence.

SPELL CHECKING IN-DESIGN

It’s a common misconception that you cannot spell check in Indesign! It’s true misspelt words don’t automatically come up highlighted like when you are writing text in microsoft word but you can run a spell check at the end.

To spell check a document, first make sure nothing is highlighted e.g. a text box (if so it will just spell check that text box only) Then go to the top menu and select EDIT and select SPELLING from the drop down menu the CHECK SPELLING from the slide out menu. Alternatively you can use the shortcut on CMD & I.

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CHANGING THE SIZE OF THE IMAGE

When the image is selected, click Auto-fit on the top control panel. If not when you try to change the size of the image it will crop it instead!

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You can use any of the white squares surrounding the shape to change its size. REMEMBER: hold down shift to keep the picture to scale!

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CROPPING AN IMAGE:

Select the image you want to crop with the selection tool so that a box with squares appears around it.

Make sure the Auto-fit box is NOT ticked now.

Move the sides and corners of the outer square until the image is cropped into the size you want.

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MOVING THE IMAGE

You can move the image in the same way as text by using the SELECTION TOOL from the tools panel.

ADDING IMAGES TO YOUR DOCUMENT

HOW TO PLACE AN IMAGE INTO INDESIGN:

Firstly, make sure you have nothing selected in your document e.g. text boxes etc... or InDesign will place the picture into that instead!

Go to FILE on the top menu and select PLACE... from the drop down menu.(The short cut for this is ‘cmd’ & ‘d’)

A window will then open up and you will need to search for and select the image you want to insert from your IMAGE FOLDER. Once you have found your image, double click on it and it and a small icon will appear with

a thumbnail of your image....

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Any images you are wanting to use in your document should be saved to the ‘IMAGE FOLDER’ you have already created. This will prevent you loosing them or them becoming unlinked! See page 9 for more information.

You can now either click on the page and the image will appear OR drag a box to make the image fit into a specific sized area.

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EMBEDDING AN IMAGE:

If you want to embed an image so that it is always there regardless to where you saved it you need to locate it in the ‘links window’. If the links window is not already open you can get it by clicking on WINDOW and selecting LINKS from the drop down menu.

This links window looks like this.

Find the image you want to embed here and select it.

Then right-hand click and select ‘embed’ from the drop-down menu.

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ADDING SHAPES TO YOUR PAGE AND COLOURING THEM IN

You can add simple shapes like rectangles, squares and circles to your page, colour them in and place them behind text etc.

Press and hold down on the RECTANGLE TOOL ICON on your tools panel as below then select the shape you wish to use.

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A cross icon will appear with a little arrow ‘ ‘. You can now draw your shape onto you page. Hold down the SHIFT BUTTON to keep shapes scaled e.g. to get a perfect square or circle.

Once you have drawn your shape you can change its size and move it around in the same way you do with images.

See page 19 for more details.

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While this may be useful for a very small project with only a few images - it’s NOT advisable for larger projects as it will make the document slow and difficult to use!!

Shapetool

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If you want your coloured shape to sit behind some text you have already created you may find it covers up the text at first. To make it sit behind go to »OBJECT on the top drop down menu - then select ARRANGE from the drop down menu then select SEND TO BACK.

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E.G.

Double click on the fill or outline and the colour picker window will appear so you can choose a colour. If you want the shape to just have a fill with no outline or vice versa select icon which means ‘apply none’.

For example, if you wanted a pink square with no outline it would look like (option a) on the tools panel. Alternatively, if you wanted a pink square with a black outline it would look like (option b) on the tool panel.

This icon at the bottom of your tools panel shows the fill colour and outline colour of the shape

Outlinecolour

Fill colour

You can change the outline and fill colour of the shape using the icon at the bottom of the tools panel.4.

e.g.

(a) (b)

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INSERTING AN IMAGE INTO A SHAPE

You can also insert images into shapes like a circle or triangle.

Press and hold down on the SHAPE TOOL ICON on your tools panel then select the shape you wish to use See page 20 for more details

Once you have drawn the shape, make sure it is selected e.g. has a blue box around it. If it is not selected click on it with the SELECTION TOOL.

Now go to FILE at the top menu and select PLACE from the drop down menu (or cmd & d) Your image will then appear in the selected shape.

You may find that the image is quite cropped e.g. you can’t see all of it. If this happens click on the image inside the shape with the ‘DIRECT SELECTION TOOL’ (the white mouse) and re-size it inside the shape.

Once you are happy with it you can treat it like an other image.

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PRICE STYLE MATRIX GRAPH

HIGH PRICE

LOW PRICE

CLASSIC FASHION

Below is an example of what your graph should resemble. Obviously your graph will reflect your own research and highlight your brands current (or desired if applicable) competitors.

DRAWING GRAPHS IN INDESIGN

You will need to draw up a number of graphs for projects on your course. Here is a guide on how to simply draw these graphs directly into Indesign. All the same principles and tools will do the same in Illustrator e.g. the straight line tool and aligning things. Therefore the skills learned in this section are applicable to both Indesign & Illustrator.

Drawing your graphs straight into InDesign (or Illustrator if you prefer and exporting them as PNG’s) is a much better way than creating them in Word, Excel and other programmes which don’t allow you to save them high resolution so end up appearing pixelated in your printed report. You can also brand them and draw them in a style that reflects the branding of your report too.

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Once the STRAIGHT LINE TOOL is selected, click on the page where you want the line to begin KEEPING the mouse button held down!

Hold down the ‘SHIFT’ button down to keep the line straight.

Slide the line to where you want it to end, then let go of the mouse button BEFORE letting go of shift.

You can edit the length and position of the line by selecting it with the SELECTION TOOL.

Once you are happy with your line, you can copy and paste it and rotate it (holding down shift allows to rotate at 45° angles at a time) so that you have a + axis like the two grey lines on the previous page.

You can group the axis by selecting them both and pressing cmd & g so they stay together.

Now add the ‘High Price’ Low price’ etc... text to your graph.

You can now add Jpeg’s of your competitor’s logos to the graph the same as you would add any other image. See page 19 for more information.

You can draw the coloured circle (see the orange line on the graph example on the previous page) by using the pen tool - see page 33 for more details.

Finally you can group all the graph together to prevent it falling apart - see point 6.

LINE ALIGNMENT

You will probably need to use the ‘ALIGN’ tool window to make sure your lines are centre to each other - see page 36 for more information.

You can add arrowheads etc... to the end of you line to make them more understandable - see page 38 for more details.

ADDING ARROWHEADS TO LINES

CREATING A PRICE/STYLE MATRIX IN INDESIGN

Firstly create the axis for the graph using the STRAIGHT LINE tool. See Below:1.

LINE TOOL

SELECTION TOOL

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£10 £20 £30 £40 £50 £60 £70 £80 £90 £100

£2.99 £27.99

£5.99 £55.99

£20.99 £70.00

£18.99 £75.00

PRICE BRAND MATRIX GRAPH

Below is an example of what your graph should resemble. Obviously your graph will reflect your own research and brands.

Firstly begin by drawing the straight lines for the graphs axis. See page 24 for more information on using the straight line tool.

Secondly draw the smaller marker lines - see below...

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Graph axis lines

Marker Lines

Marker Lines

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See page 37 for information on how to use the ‘distribute objects window’ so they are all equally spaced like in my example.

Next draw the lines that show your chosen competitors entry and exit price for your chosen product category.

Also see page 38 for information on how to add, arrowheads etc... dots etc... to the end of your lines.

Now you can add your text to show your prices as well as jpegs of your retailer’s logo’s on the left axis.

Finally group the whole graph so you don’t loose bits by selecting it all and pressing cmd & g.

NB

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E.G.

NB

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£18.99 £75.00

PSYCHOGRAPHIC PROFILE GRAPH

Below is an example of what your graph should resemble. Obviously your graph will reflect your own research and plot your own customers,

EARLYADOPTERS

13.5 %

INN

OVA

TORS

- 2.

5 %

EARLYMAJORITY

34 %

LATEMAJORITY

34 %

LAGGARDS16%

PROPOSED BHSCHILDRENSWEAR

CUSTOMER

CURRENT BHSCHILDRENSWEAR

CUSTOMER

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Firstly begin by drawing the straight lines for the graphs axis. See page 24 for more information on using the straight line tool.

Now draw the vertical lines - you can copy and paste the left axis line so that all the lines are the same length.

Use the SELECTION TOOL to move the vertical lines into the correct position to represent your findings. Hold down ‘SHIFT’ to keep them aligned.

Now draw on the ‘Current’ and ‘Proposed’ target market lines - see below exampleYou can copy and paste one of the other vertical lines to make this easier.

See page 38 for information to change the colour of the line and make it dashed etc...

Now you can draw the curved line using the pen tool. This is quite tricky if you haven’t used it before and takes a little practise! However, its a great tool to learn to use! See page 31 for more details. You will also have CAD lessons teaching you this too.

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NB

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Graph axis lines

Vertical Lines

‘Current’ and

‘Proposed’ target marketlines

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USING THE PEN TOOL TO CREATE A CURVED LINE

Firstly select the ‘PEN TOOL’ From the tools panel.

E.G.

You can edit the lines shape and curves at the end so don’t worry if it goes wrong on the way - there is no need to start again!

Click on the graph where you want the line to start.

Next click at the start/end of the next curve keeping the mouse button held down.

As you move the mouse around (keeping the button held down) you will see the line starts to curve.

Once you have the desired angle let go of the mouse then repeat the process until you reach the end of the line.

When you have finished the line click on the ‘SELECTION TOOL ICON’ to finish otherwise the line will keep on drawing wherever you click!.

It’s best to create the line with as little stops as possible see below. See next page for example

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NB

PEN TOOL

Starting point

Start of 1st curve

Start of 2nd curve

Start of 3rd curve

End of the line

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SAVING YOUR DOCUMENT READY FOR PRINT

Once you have created all your document, save it as a normal Indesign file then save it as a PDF file too. You can save it as a PDF by going to:

File then selecting Adobe PDF Presents from the drop down menu then select [High Quality Print]

Your file will then save as a PDF too which you will use when you come to printing the document.

Click on the blue dots at the end of the line with the direct selection tool to edit

the curve of the line.

You can edit the line anytime by clicking on it with the direct selection tool.

E.G.

You will see when you click on the line with the ‘DIRECT SELECTION TOOL’ white dots appear where you clicked with the pen tool - these are called anchor points. If you click on one of these dots a blue line appears with two blue dots either end. You can click on these blue dots and move them around to change the angle.

E.G.

Now you just need to add the appropriate text to your graph using text boxes on top.

See page 38 for information on how to change the colour of the line and make it dashed etc...

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NB

DIRECT SELECTIONTOOL

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OPTIMIZING PDF FILES IN ADOBE ACROBAT

When you export your InDesign projects as PDF’s they can become quite large files especially if they contain lots of images. If you want to upload your document to turnitin for example you will need to optimize the PDF first so that it’s below the 20mb limit the programme accepts.

HOW TO OPTIMIZE YOUR PDF:

Open up your PDF document in adobe Acrobat. This can be found in your applications folder.

Make sure you have images selected

here:

In both these boxes select low from the drop down menus

Click on OK then this box will appear like when you usually save a document:

Save your document and add ‘optimized’ after the name so you know it’s the compressed version NOT the one you will use to print!

Once you have clicked save you will notice the size of the file should decrease considerably. This will be the version you will use to upload to turnitin.

REMEMBER:

Always print off the High resolution PDF NOT the Optimized version otherwise all you images will print low quality and pixelated!

However, it is important that you use the original large hi-resolution PDF file for printing out your document to ensure all the images are good quality etc...

NB: You need the full version of Adobe Acrobat NOT the free version most people have at home so this may need to be done in University.

Go to File then select Save As from the drop down menu then Optimized PDF From the slide out menu.

This box will then appear:

My Project optimized

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WHAT IS ILLUSTRATOR?

Illustrator is a programme where you can design and draw things such as logos, CAD flats etc... from scratch. It’s a difficult programme to start with but once you get to grips with it the things you can create is endless.

After gaining some confidence in Indesign, lots of the Illustrator tool palette and principles like creating text boxed drawing shapes etc... remains the same. You should still do large amounts of text work in Indesign where necessary and use illustrator for drawing things like logos and CADs up predominantly. A lot of things like creating mood boards can be done in either Indesign directly or in Illustrator then saving and exporting and bringing it into Indesign - it depends which programme you feel more confident with?

How to open a new Illustrator document and create a new document.

Open up Illustrator by clicking on icon on your tool bar or in your applications folder.

Go to FILE in the top menu bar and select NEW from the drop-down menu.

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OPENING UP INDESIGN & THE BASICS

This box will then appear:

Select your page preferences e.g. A4 portrait or landscape and you are ready to go!3.

portrait orlandscape

papersize

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USING THE INDESIGN TOOLS PANEL

GROUP SELECTION TOOL

PEN TOOL

(Allows you to move the page around to view different areas. You can do the same by holding down

the space bar)

HAND TOOL

(For drawing things from scratch)

(Allows you to click on a page element and copy it e.g. text style or

colour)

EYE DROPPER TOOL

TEXT TOOL(Allows you to create text boxes,

create and edit text)

LINE TOOL(For drawing straight lines)

ROTATE TALL(For rotating objects & pattens)

ZOOM TOOL(You can either select an area to

zoom into or repeatedly click on page to gradually zoom.

Alternatively hold down the ‘cmd’ key and press - to zoom out & + to zoom in)

Shows the fill of a shapee.g white

See more on Page 21. Shows the fill of a shapee.g black

See more on Page 21.


USEFUL SHORTCUTS

There are lots of keyboard shortcuts to use to make things easier similar to the ‘cmd’ and ‘s’ to save instead of going through all the drop down menus.

Here are some of the most useful ones to get started:

Hold cmd & s Hold cmd & c Hold cmd & v Hold cmd & - Hold cmd & +Hold cmd & gHold cmd & i

= save= copy= paste= zoom out= zoom in= group= spell check



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ADDING TEXT TO YOUR PAGE

Adding text to your page is the same as you would do if you were using InDesign - see page 17 for more details. However, you don’t have to draw a text box e.g. if you are just writing a small title. Instead, just click on the page and start typing.

Sometimes it’s useful to outline text so you can edit it in more detail for a logo etc... This will become more clear in your CAD lessons.

To outline text select it with the selection tool, then go to the top menu and select TYPE then CREATE OUTLINES from the drop down menu. Alternatively press shift, cmd & ‘O’.

OUTLINING TEXT:

ADDING SHAPES AND COLOURING THEM

This is the same process as you would use in Indesign - see page 20 for more details.

ADDING IMAGES TO YOUR PAGE

To add images to you page you just need to find them in your image file and drag and drop them onto your page. Illustrator doesn’t work on an image linking system like InDesign hence it’s not great to add huge amounts of images to one Illustrator file as it will become very large and hard to handle! Once the image is in Illustrator it will in most cases have a blue X over it. Look along the top menu and click the embed button otherwise the image will get lost.

As with all images hold down shift to keep them scaled!!!

USING THE PEN TOOL

The pen tool is by far the most difficult but also the most rewarding tool to use! It means that you can draw any shape you want, create your own logo or even draw up a mock shop front for example!! There are plenty of online tutorials that will be recommended by your CAD tutor as well as plenty of CAD lessons helping you with this tool too.

1. First select the ‘PEN TOOL’ NOT the ‘curvature tool’ which looks very similar next to it!

PEN TOOL

2. Assuming you have something to trace around (here I use the example here of the WWF panda as it’s what I use in CAD lesson because it has a good amount of curves) Find a point somewhere around the image you want to start tracing from and just click there with the pen tool once and let go of the mouse button. SEE NEXT PAGE FOR EXAMPLE...

CURVATURE TOOL

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3. Once you have clicked in your chosen starting place and dropped your ‘anchor point’ you will then look to where your next stopping point will be. The pen tool can create curved lines up to a 1/4 of a circle curve at a time. This is something that will become easier to grasp the more you practise with it. To create a curve you click where you next want to drop the anchor point/pen tool and this time keep the mouse button held down. Gently move to the mouse to left and the right and up and down and you will see the line curving between the original anchor point (your starting point) and the point you have just created. Once you are happy with the curve let go of the mouse button and repeat carrying on until you reach the beginning again.

Where I have clickedwith the pen tool

‘Anchor Point’

NB - I have dropped the transparency of the panda image down to make it easier to trace around. You can do this with the transparency window found in WINDOW in the top menu then selecting TRANSPARENCY. Select the image you want to make transparent then drop the transparency down accordingly.

E.g.

TRANSPARENCY

PEN TOOL CONT...

Original startingpoint ‘anchor point’

Second point where you press & hold mouse button to create curve

Reduce the transparencydown here.

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4. Once you are back at the start, hover over your starting anchor point cmd a little ° will appear. This will mean you are re-connecting with the start to create a whole shape.

NB - It’s best to trace with an invisible fill and just a colour for the outline otherwise you risk not being able to see where you are going because you are filling things in! The same method applies to the colour of lines and fills as it does for shapes See page 21 for more details.

COLOURING YOUR SHAPE IN

5. Once you have drawn around the whole of your image you can delete the image you were tracing and save the document as an AI file (illustrator file) To use your hand drawn image in photoshop or InDesign you can either just copy and paste the vector into the other programme OR export in as a PNG making sure you select HIGH QUALITY & TRANSPARENT background to save on file sizes.

E.G.

Select ‘high (300 dpi)’

Select backgroundcolour Transparentfrom drop down

menu

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USING THE ALIGN WINDOW

You can find the ‘ALIGN’ window by selecting Window in the top menu bar then selecting OBJECT & LAYOUT from the drop down menu then ALIGN from the slide out menu. The alignment tool window works both the same in InDesign and Illustrator. You can use it for aligning pictures, markers on graphs, text boxes etc...

The Align window looks like this...

Hold down the ‘cmd’ button and select all the lines individually that you want to align using the SELECTION TOOL arrow. You will see that they are then all highlighted.

While the lines are highlighted select the correct alignment option in the align window.

E.G.

For the ‘Price/Style Matrix’ graph where you want the two lines centred to each other so they are a perfect cross + you would select ‘Align horizontal centres’ and ‘Align vertical centres’ highlighted below.

BASIC ALIGNING

align to left

align toverticalcentre

align to right

align to top

align tohorrizontal

centre

align to bottomedges

‘Align horizontal centres’

‘Align vertical centres’

HIGH PRICE

LOW PRICE

CLASSIC FASHION

crossaxis

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DISTRIBUTING OBJECTS EVENLY

Also in the Align window is a section called ‘distributing objects’. This allows you to equally space lines etc...apart.

Distribute objects section

E.G.

An example where you will need to use the ‘Distribute Objects’ window is with the ‘Price Brand Matrix’ with the marker lines.

£10 £20 £30 £40 £50 £60 £70 £80 £90 £100

£2.99 £27.99

£5.99 £55.99

£20.99 £70.00

£18.99 £75.00

1st Line 2nd Line

Make sure you have the first and last line in the correct positions and the rest of the lines laid in between.

Once the first and last lines and in the correct positions select all the other lines you want to distribute evenly. You can do this by holding down ‘cmd’ and selecting each one individually OR by selecting over them all with the SELECTION TOOL.

If I wanted to align the bottom row for example, once I had the first and last lines in the positions I wanted them and all the individual lines are selected I would click on ‘Align vertical centres’ from the align menu making them all centred then click ‘Distribute Horizontal Centres’ from the Distribute Objects Section. This will make then all evenly spaced.

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Align vertical centres

Distribute Horizontal Centres

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ADDING ELEMENTS TO LINES

You can make your lines more understandable by adding arrows, dots etc to the end of them. You can do this using the ‘STROKES’ window which should be open as standard - if not you can open it by selecting Window from the top menu then ‘STROKES’ from the drop down menu.

YOUR STROKE WINDOW SHOULD LOOK LIKE THIS...

You can add any of the above elements to the start and end of lines by selecting them from these

drop down menus.You can change the type of line to anything in the drop down menu to

the left.E.G. Dashed, dotted etc...

You can change the thickness of the line here

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Photoshop is a programme that you should be using just to edit photographic images. Some student are already familiar with Photoshop from previous college/school courses and try to create all their project page layouts within the programme rather than using a combination of Illustrator and Indesign too. This isn’t a good idea because once you start adding text and multiple images to a photoshop layout the pages become hard to use and you run the risk of pixelation!

For the types of projects you will be creating, you should be using Photoshop to cut out images (such as catwalk images) or editing the colours of images for trend boards for example. Photoshop is also a good tool to check image sizes to make sure they are large enough (over 1000 pixels in size) to appear clear and not pixelated in your final projects. This section covers all the basics you will need to know in Photoshop for your projects.

WHAT IS PHOTOSHOP?

OPENING PHOTOSHOP & THE BASICS

Unlike Illustrator and Indesign where once you have opened up the programme you start a new document and specify its size e.g. A4 Landscape. Photoshop you just need to find the image you want to edit (hopefully saved in your image file - see page 6 for more information) drag it onto the Photoshop icon on your toolbar and get started! You can create A4 documents in Photoshop but you really should avoid creating spreads in the programme instead use Indesign or Illustrator instead.

Start by finding the image on your system that you want to edit. Preferably saved to your image folder (see page 9 for more details) so that all your images are saved together and you don’t get lost links once using InDesign!

Now just drag your image onto the icon on your toolbar and it will open in Photoshop.

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If you open a document e.g. an A4 page and place an image on it, you run the risk of making the image a lot smaller than it’s original size - it’s always best to keep an image as large as possible to get the best quality image!

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USING THE PHOTOSHOP TOOLS PANEL


MOVE TOOL

MARQUEE TOOLPress & hold for other

shape options

Allows you to selectspecific shaped areas

of an image SELECTION TOOL

Press & hold for otheroptions

Press & hold for otheroptions

LASSO TOOLAllows you to select

specific more detailedareas of an image

CROP TOOL

EYEDROPPERTOOL

PAINTBUCKETTOOL

TEXT TOOL

ZOOM TOOL

PEN TOOLAllows to freehand

draw areas to select

USEFUL SHORTCUTSThere are lots of keyboard shortcuts to use to make things easier similar to the ‘cmd’ and ‘s’ to save instead of

going through all the drop down menus.Here are some of the most useful ones to get started:

Hold cmd & s Hold cmd & c Hold cmd & v Hold cmd & - Hold cmd & +Hold cmd & gHold cmd & dHold cmd & i

= save= copy= paste= zoom out= zoom in= group= deselect= spell check



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CUTTING OUT IMAGES IN PHOTOSHOP

One of the main things you may be wanting to do is cut out images in Photoshop. You will probably want to keep a transparent background to them so that when you take them into InDesign and layer images up to create a mood board for example you don’t have a white rectangle surrounding them (like with a Jpeg)! Images that keep a transparent background are called Portable Network Graphics or more commonly PNG’s.

There are a number of different ways to cut out images in Photoshop. It can be as easy as a click of a button if something has a plain or white background using the ‘MAGIC WAND TOOL’ and deleting or if there’s a detailed background you can one of the ‘LASSO TOOLS’, the ‘QUICK SELECTION’ or the ‘PEN TOOL’.

THE MAGIC WAND TOOL

The magic want tool is the easiest tool to use to cut images out but ONLY works on images with a plain background and where there’s a good contrast between the object you want to cut out and its background. See the below example...

Once the image is in Photoshop

click on the white background and it will start selecting.

Hold down shift and click in areas that aren’t selected at first to select those

too.

The dashed line around the image shows the part that’s selected.

Once the image is in Photoshop delete the padlock on the layers window by simply clicking on it once. If you don’t unlock the layer it won’t allow you to delete the background.

Click on the white background and it will start selecting.

Hold down shift and click in areas that aren’t selected at first to select those too.

Click delete to delete the background.

If this doesn’t work you may need to rasterize you image - see page 42 for more details.

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Click on padlockto unlock it.

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TOLERANCE - INCREASING THE AMOUNT OF AREA THATS SELECTED.

You can increase the amount of are the magic wand selects with one click by INCREASING the tolerance number along the top menu. See below:

THE QUICK SELECTION TOOL

With images like the below, where the background is more detailed, the magic wand tool won’t be accurate enough to select it. The second tool you can try to use is the ‘QUICK SELECTION TOOL’ which grabs more pieces as you hold down your mouse and move over the image.

Uncheck the padlock form the layers window. See page 41.

Select the ‘QUCIK SELECTION TOOL’ press on a part of the background of the image and keep moving the mouse around until you have selected all of the background.

Click delete to delete the background.

If this doesn’t work you may need to rasterize you image - see page above for more details.

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You may find that the ’QUICK SELECTION TOOL’ isn’t accurate enough and is selecting parts of the image you want to keep. In this case it may be worth trying one of the following tools.

RASTRIZING IMAGES IN PHOTOSHOP

To work on images you sometimes need to ‘RASTERIZE’ the image first. find your image in the layers window and right click, then select RASTERIZE’ from the pop up menu. You should now be able to amend you image, delete backgrounds etc...

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THE POLYGON LASSO TOOL

The ‘POLYGON LASSO TOOL’ allows you to be more accurate with your selection.

Uncheck the padlock from the layers window. See page 41.

Select the ‘POLYGON LASSO TOOL’ from the tool panel.

Click at the edge of the part of the image where you want to start cutting it out from.

Select all the image by going around it with a series of small straight lines until you reach the point you started at.

Once back at the start, hover over the place you started and a little ‘o’ will appear meaning you are joining the selection up.

At this point if you press delete you will delete what’s inside the selection NOT the outside/background of the image. To select the outside of the selection go to the top menu and select SELECT then INVERSE then delete the background.

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THE PEN TOOL

The ‘PEN TOOL’ allows you to be more accurate and use curves along the way. It works in a similar way to the Pen Tool in illustrator but isn’t as versatile. See page 33 for more information on the pen tool.

Uncheck the padlock form the layers window. See page 41.

Select the ‘PEN TOOL’ from the tool panel.

Click at the edge of the part of the image where you want to start cutting it out from.

Select all the image by going around it with the pen tool.

Once back at the start, hover over the place you started and a little ‘o’ will appear meaning you are joining the selection up.

Once you have done that you will notice the selection doesn’t have the dashed selection line around it like with the previous tools. To make it a selection area you now need to go to the ‘PATHS’ window and select ‘LOAD PATH AS A SELECTION’ the little dashed circle at the bottom of the window (see below...) This will convert it to a selection.

At this point if you press delete you will delete what’s inside the selection not the outside/background of the image. To select the outside of the selection go to the top menu and select SELECT then INVERSE then delete the background.

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Load path as a selection

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ADDING TO OR SUBTRACTING FROM THE SELECTION AREA

You may find that you have selected most of an image but there is just a little bit left off. In this case you can add to it using ‘THE LASSO TOOL’

Use the lasso toolto add this part in.

Select the ‘LASSO TOOL’ from the tool panel.

Along the top menu select whether you want to add to or subtract from the selection then use the tool in the same was as before.

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add toselection

take away from selection

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SAVING AN IMAGE AS A PNG (RETAINING ITS TRANSPARENT BACKGROUND)

Once you have deleted the background of your image there will be a grey and white checked background. This grey and white check represents transparency in Photoshop. If you are creating layered trend boards or adding this image to a coloured page for example you will want to retain the transparent background to avoid it having a white square surrounding it like there would be if you were to save it as a Jpeg.

FEATHERING (SOFTENING) THE EDGE OF A SELECTED AREA

Sometimes when you cut out an image the edges can seem quite severe and could do with being softened or as Photoshop calls ‘FEATHERING’. To do this, while you have the selection selected and before you press delete - increase the number (only to about 3 or 4 px) in the feathering box. See below.

Increase this number to feather a selection

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To make this happen you will want to save it as a PNG. Go to FILE then SAVE AS then Select PNG from the drop down menu (see below)

Name the image

Choose where you want to save it to.

Select PNG

IMAGES FROM WEBSITES AND BLOGS ETC...

If you have sourced an image from a blog or website and can’t see straight away what size it is, you can check by saving it and opening it up in Photoshop.

Once it is in Photoshop go to IMAGE in the top menu and select IMAGE SIZE from the drop-down menu then this window will appear:

The width and height boxes should read at

least 1000 Pixels

in each.

CHECKING THE SIZE OF IMAGES

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DOWNLOADING IMAGES FROM WGSN:

PHOTOGRAPHIC IMAGES - JPEG’S:

Never drag and drop photographic images from WGSN straight onto your photoshop file or desktop - this will result in you getting a low-resolution pixelated thumbnail image. Instead click the ‘download’ option and a hi-resolution image will download to you desktop/downloads file.

FASHION CAD’S - EPS FILES:

Always download an ‘EPS’ file when using fashion CADs from WGSN. Don’t be tempted to do a screen grab or try to drag and drop the image. Doing this gives you a really low-resolution pixelated image and makes your work look really scruffy!

The EPS file will download to your desktop or downloads file. You can then open that straight into Photoshop or Illustrator and edit accordingly.

OPENING AN EPS FILE IN PHOTOSHOP & ILLUSTRATOR:

You should be editing your downloaded CADs in Illustrator as it is easier and more professional that way. However, if for some reason you do decide to open them in Photoshop this window will appear:

The resolution automatically sets to 72. You will need to change this to 300 (like in the above example) so that you get a good quality image that won’t be pixelated when you print it out.

DOWNLOADING IMAGES FROM THE WEB:

It’s really important to source good quality images for your reports to ensure they don’t pixelate when you come to printing them out. Sometimes some smaller images may look OK on screen but when you come to printing them out get pixelated and look untidy.

FIGURE 1

GRAPHICS GOOD PRACTISE

This section covers advice and guidance on how to achieve well presented and well edited projects. Follow the guidance in this section and make sure your project ticks all the boxes. See page 53 for a useful pre hand in checklist.

Increase resolutionfrom

72 to 300Pixels/Inch

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GOOGLE IMAGES:

When you hover over an image in google images, information about the image size and resolution like in the below example will appear.

It should read at least 1000 x 1000

here to bee good quality.

FIGURE 2

A good habit to get into when searching for images in google is to click LARGE in the options along the top of the web page. You can then be assured any image you find will be high enough resolution to use in your report.

E.G.

Never use the thumbnail image in google. You should click on the thumbnail which will open up the original full sized image! This is the image that you can drag off or save. Right click with the mouse to save the image to your image folder.

1. Click ‘SEARCH TOOLS’

2. Click ‘SIZE’ &select ‘LARGE’

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IMAGES FROM WEBSITES AND BLOGS ETC...

If you have sourced an image from a blog or website you won’t be able to tell the size of it by looking at it. Instead you can check by saving it and opening it up in Photoshop.

Once it is in Photoshop go to ‘IMAGE’ in the top menu and select ‘IMAGE SIZE’ from the drop-down menu then this window will appear:

The width and height boxes should read at

least 1000 Pixels

in each.

FIGURE 3

SCREEN GRABS (MAC) OR PRINT SCREENS (PC):

What is a Screen Grab/Print Screen?

A screen grab is when you take an image of what’s on screen on your computer. It can be useful to use if you want to grab a picture of a website page to put into a report. However, screengrabs are small low-res images and should be used as a last resort!

How to take a screen grab...

MAC: Screen grabs can be made when you click ‘Shift’ and ‘CMD’ and ‘4’ on a Mac making a circle icon with a cross through it appear - you can then click on the screen and drag a grey square over an image which will then automatically save as a jpeg or PNG on your desktop.

PC’S: The same can be done on a PC by clicking ’Ctrl’ and the ‘Print Screen button’ However, instead of being able to select a certain part of a web page or image it saves an image of everything on screen that you will then need to crop out in Photoshop.

Screen grabs are very useful and sometimes they can be large enough images to use as thumbnail size images in a report but they should be a last resort!

Check the size of the screen grab image in Photoshop to be at least 1000 Pixels wide and high. See previous page (FIGURE 3) for more information on how to do this.

Never use screen grabs to copy text for example: news headline’s and articles or bulks of text from websites. It will become really pixelated and scruffy when you come to print your reports and really brings the level of presentation down. Instead select the text and copy and paste it into a text box within your document.

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SAVING PHOTOSHOP READY TO PLACE INTO INDESIGN:

If you have created something in Photoshop (like a collage of images) that you later want to place into Indesign, you will need to save it as a Hi-res Jpeg or a PNG file as well as a Photoshop file (PSD) for future editing.

SAVING A HI-RES JPEG:

Once you have saved your PSD file click ‘save as’ again then select ‘Jpeg’ from the drop down menu. Click on save and this window will appear:

FIGURE 4

You will then place the high resolution Jpeg into your Indesign file as it will be a lot smaller in size than the PSD file which saves all the layering information etc...

SAVING A HI-RES JPEG

See page 45 for more information on saving PNG files:.

Choose at least 8 here to make the image high enough

resolution to use.

Click OK.Shows size of file as you

increase/decrease quality.

FONTS AND TEXT:

Choosing an appropriate font:

It is really important to choose a font that is representative of your project. Never use the standard adobe fonts like Myriad it boring and really uncreative! Instead, search for or alternatively download a font from one of the many free font websites (see below) and select one that is reflective of your project.

Good free font downloading websites include:

www.dafont.comwww.1001freefonts.comwww.fontspace.com

It’s really IMPORTANT that you still choose a font that is LEGIBLE for your report!

You can choose a more ‘elaborate’ font but if it’s not very easy to read, keep it to titles only, then choose a more legible font for the main body of text.

E.g. A medieval, urban or sci-fi themed font may look great for titles but for the main body of text it makes it impossible to read the report!

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HYPHENATED TEXT:

All Adobe programmes automatically hyphenate text when you type into text boxes. This can mean you could have a whole page of text with almost every line ending with a hyphen dash. This looks really scruffy and makes the report difficult to read.

You can easily stop this by selecting the text box and going to - WINDOWS in your top menu then selecting TOOLS & TYPE from the drop down menu then selecting PARAGRAPH from the slide out menu.

This window will then appear:

Un-check this box to stop text from being hyphenated!

FIGURE 5

You will have to do this process individually for each separate text box. You can select multiple text boxes to amend at the same time by holding down shift and selecting each one then repeating the above process.

See pages 16 & 18 for more details.

You should NEVER use a font that’s all in uppercase for your main body text - this will result in loss of marks in projects AND makes it very hard to read!

INSTALLING DOWNLOADED FONTS:

If you have downloaded a font from a website such as dafont.com, it should appear on your desktop or downloads fine. All you need to do on a Mac is find the font ending in .otf or .ttf and double click on it. Then a window will appear with the font preview and a button saying install - click on the install button and your font will be added to your font library.

REMEMBER - always save your fonts to your font folder. See page 9 for more details. If you are using multiple computers to work on your computer you will need to install all your fonts each time. If you don’t all the fonts will preview in adobes generic myriad font.

SPELL CHECKING:

Spell checking and grammar is also really important! If you are writing large amounts of text it’s sometimes best to write it in Microsoft word and spell check it there then copy and paste it into Indesign after.

You can spell check in Indesign and Illustrator by going to EDIT in the top Menu then selecting SPELLING from the drop down menu then selecting CHECK SPELLING from the slide out menu.

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PAGE LAYOUTS:

It’s really important that you create a layout that flows throughout your report and is reflective of the market, brand, etc... you are presenting. You will receive plenty of help with this during you CAD lessons.

Some people find it really easy to come up with a good layout whereas others struggle more.

Choosing a good layout tips:

If you struggle with choosing a good layout I find a good starting point is to look at WGSN reports, magazine layouts, fashion look books and flyers etc. See what sort of layouts you think work well and use them as inspiration for your own layouts.

Start by laying out one double page spread (your master pages - see page 13 for more details) first. Once you are happy with these you can use this layout throughout your report.

Don’t be afraid of white space - clean pages with attention to detail like branding etc work a lot better most of the time rather than huge coloured backgrounds where information and images get lost on.

SAVING YOUR FINAL FILE READY TO PRINT:

Once you have finished your report in Indesign and are ready to print it out you will save it as and Indesign File (So you can always edit it more if need be) and a High resolution PDF (which you will use to print from)

Saving a High Resolution PDF File:

Go to File then select Adobe PDF Presets from the drop down menu then select [High Quality Print] from the slide-out menu.

It takes a little while to save as a PDF especially if you have lots of pages as it will have to embed all your images etc. Once it has saved this will be the file you get printed.

Saving as a high resolution file keeps all the images etc... that you have used nice and crisp. If you save as a smaller sized PDF you risk loosing quality!

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It’s essential you check through all your work before handing it in to make sure it is absolutely perfect!!! Here’s a quick check-list to tick off as a pre-flight check!

Have you covered all the points in the brief? Make sure you haven’t missed off an essential point that may cause you to loose marks!!

Spell checking - at the very end of your project spell check once more. You can spell check in In-Design too - go to Edit in the top menu, then select spelling from the drop down menu then check spelling on the slide out menu OR as a short-cut press cmd & C.

Make sure all the images you have used are High Resolution to avoid loosing marks for pixelation! See graphics good practise hand out for advice on this.

Make sure all you fonts are consistent throughout your project e.g. All titles in the same font and size, all subtitles in the same font and size and all body text in the same font and size. Also, make sure all your body text is legible (no crazy styled fonts!) NOT in italic & NOT in upper-case!!!

If you are doing group work it’s particularly important to check - especially if you have all been responsible for submitting different parts!!

All printed projects need to have a contents page and page numbers - See Introduction to InDesign handout for information on creating page numbers!

Make sure you have an Introduction and there is plenty of annotation throughout. Remember somebody who knows nothing about your industry or project should be able to pick it up and understand what your project is all about! E.G. It’s great to have a page with street style photography for example BUT you need to say who, where, what, when, why and what you have found from your images...

Are your page layouts consistent - using a Master Page helps keep layouts consistent. Does the layout reflect the branding of the company you are researching?

Make sure that all your images are linked if you are using InDesign - run a pre-flight check to check. If links are missing your project will be very pixelated.

Make sure all images and quotes are referenced where necessary and you have a bibliography at the end of your project.

Make sure you have submitted your project in the right format e.g. do you need time at the end to allow for printing and binding? Do you need to save it as a PDF too for turnitin?

If you are giving a Power Point presentation make sure you save any fonts you have used - it is likely they will not be on the computer you are presenting on and they will need to quickly be installed beforehand!!!

Finally, get a friend and a CAD tutor to look over your project. It’s likely that they will see errors that you may well have missed!!!

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PRE HAND-IN CHECK

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