DSGN-1000-1: Winter 2025

Mon, Apr 07

InDesign continues

Today's objectives

  • Review InDesign
  • Images: Sizes, formats, links, resolution
  • Text wrap
  • Guides and grids

In-Class Assignment next week

You will have 90 min to complete a project using Illustrator, Photoshop and InDesign, based on provided materials. Basic image manipulation in Photoshop, drawing or altering vector images in Illustrator, and assembling text and images into a final product in InDesign with be the core skills you will need to demonstrate.

Make sure your computer is functioning properly before the in-class assignment and consider using a NSCAD lab to write the assignment if you are not sure your computer will be reliable. Making sure you have access to a working computer with the necessary software is your responsibility.

The in-class assignment will be done under quiz conditions - no outside resources or help is permitted.

Resources

Samples

Download the sample files Samples.

Grids

Examples of grids

Book recommendations

While there are many good online resources, learning about typography requires reading printed books. Here are a few:

Free! Erik Spiekermann's Stop Stealing Sheep & find out how type works is in a new editon and is a free download sponsored by Google fonts. Spiekermann is opinionated, direct, sometimes grumpy, and almost always correct. Well written and accessible for beginners but valuable for all.

Ellen's Lupton's Thinking with Type is recently revised, and covers many newly added topics like non-latin alphabets and accessibility. Highly recommended

Most technical and practical, InDesign Type: Professional Typography with Adobe InDesign, 4th Edition covers how to use InDesign's powerful but sometimes daunting type and layout controls. Worth every penny

Robert Bringhurst's Elements of Typographical Style is what I refer to when I want to end an argument about type (or start one.) Opinionated (notice a trend), sometimes quirky, but brings a poet's love of language to typography, something many style manuals lack. Strictly focussed on printed text, such as books.

Time-based media (animation with After Effects)

Today's objectives

  • Review assignments
  • After Effects basics
  • Prepare for practical quiz

Preparation

  • Have Adobe After Effects and ready to go.

Resources

Animation with After Effects

There are many resources online to learn After Effects. I suggest having a good grasp of the 2D basics before moving to After Effects' 3D tools.

Our basic After Effects lesson (condensed summary)
One of many beginner tutorials on After Effects
Kinetic typography music video - done in After Effects

Presentations

after-effects-in-class-task

Fundamentals of animation

The 12 Principles of Animation: https://idearocketanimation.com/13721-12-principles-of-animation-gifs/

Animation with After Effects

After Effects is a bit like Photoshop for video. It's a huge and powerful program, and will take some time to understand. A few basic concepts:

Projects

A project is where everything associated with your particular work is located. A project has one or more compositions

Composition

A composition is a combination of graphics. A simple project may only have one composition, a complex one may have hundreds.

Layer

AfterEffects layers are similar (but not identical) to Photoshop layers. They may contain still images, motion graphics, video footage, type, effects or 3d elements.

Timeline

The timeline allows you to move through projects and compositions in time. Each layer has its own sequence of frames/

Frame

A frame is a single point on the timeline. When frames are played back rapidly, the illusion of motion is created. A typical frame represents 1/30 of a second.

Basic animation
  • Transform:
  • Position
  • Scale
  • Opacity
  • Rotation
  • Animate lines with trim paths
  • Import from Photoshop and Illustrator
  • Animate text

Assignments

Formatting for Application Usability Assignment

Needs to be done in InDesign.

Margins a minimum of 1 inch left and right.

Use a leading value of twice your body text point size.

Title page: Title of essay, your name, your student number, instructor's name, course name and number, due date.

Pages need to be numbered, starting with the first page of your essay (not the title page). Use a header with the title of the essay in it, and your name. Use parent pages.

You must use paragraph styles for all content. No complex formatting such as use of images or columns is needed - you are using InDesign to create the format of a standard research paper.

Cite the name of the program you reviewed on a separate page titled "Works Cited."

Getting your page numbers to start on the first text page (not the cover page) can be tricky. You need to define a section and then remove the extra automatic page number from the cover page. Refer to: Page numbers and sections or to the video on the class web page, Managing page numbering options.

Use the MLA format for the citation of the application site on the "Works Cited". List any other references in the "Works Cited" page. Follow the MLA style exactly; you must also include the URL for any web sites you refer to. (URLs are optional in MLA style, but I am requiring you to include them.) ZoteroBib is a good resource for generating references.

Package (use File->Package) and zip compress the file.

Upload to Brightspace by 6 pm, Sun, Apr 13

Name your folder YOURLASTNAME_Review and so your zip file will be called YOURLASTNAME_Review.zip.