Using Adobe InDesign: Brochure

So the first project of the spring semester at my college in my graphic design II class introduced us into Adobe InDesign.

Adobe InDesign is a layout program. It’s used to make posters, newspapers, brochures, ect. The text book for my class gave us exercise to make a very complex and highly typographic brochure. It was white, with black and pink lettering. But it was very messy! Words were overlapping, hanging off the edge of the pages, and they were slanted.

This exercise allowed the user to use pretty much all of the major functions in InDesign. It showed how to use guides to align everything, how to add and alter type, add images, use character settings and character styles, about master pages, the swatch panel, the stroke panel and more.

For my project, I’ve decided to make a summer soccer camp brochure – the idea from a very dear friend of mine whom helped me with the process. InDesign turned out to be a very fun program to play with! And with the help of Photoshop, the process of making a brochure was smooth and fun.

Disclaimer: The information in this brochure is  fake but based off of actual brochure. I’ve made the camp up for this project!

This is the finished product! During critique, which my class has every time a project is due she had some pros and cons about this image:

Pros:

• • • • The images were evenly spaced
      • The color of the font stuck out perfectly and the yellow highlighted text fitted well with the rest of the text and the over all color scheme.
      • She liked how it faded from blue to green from one corner to the next
      • I added a filter to the guy because it was in bad quality
      • The star burst effect that is very light in the middle panel, in the background.

Cons:

• • • • The background font on the front page and on the welcome page was slightly pixelated
      • The text on the registration form was pixelated
      • The font on the welcome page was a bit big for her liking.

(Click on the image to view full size)

During critique, I was asked how I did all of this stuff because my classmates kept their color schemes simpler and didn’t have things blend like I did. So I will share with you how I did it an hopefully you’ll be able to follow along better then my classmates! haha

First off, the image is set to normal, US paper but landscape. I equipped the rulers (View – Show Rulers or Crt+R/Command+R) and I set a small border around the edges with the guides and to divide the papers by three sense this is a tri-fold brochure.

All images are on separate layers and the text section of text is on it’s own layer too!

For the images I have in my brochure, I took pictures of my friend playing soccer, but sense I’m horrible at action shots, they came out not in the best of quality. This is where Photoshop comes in! I selected around the figure using the pen tool (short cut P for pc and mac) then right clicked (option click for mac) and made a selection around him, deleted the unwanted space, then added the cutout artistic filter. (Filter – Artistic – Cutout) This was to make him look like a graphic.

After I arranged all the photos in to place (including the background soccer field image which I didn’t add a filter) I used a rainbow gradient from Photoshop and pulled it into InDesign, laid it over the entire image. (I also added a plain b/w gradient in the background in InDesign) I opened the effects window (Window – Effects) and set the blending mode to multiply.

There is also a star burst effect I made in Photoshop that I added to the background of the brochure and made it a light blue. That layer was set to luminosity.

Those are some basic things I did to make this brochure. My teacher says that it’s the small “polishes” of a design that really makes a difference to the over all look. I had a lot of fun working in InDesign and in Photoshop – the Adobe products are meant to used together and that’s what I suggest to everyone! Download the 30 day trails for the prodcuts and just play around with the features in each. You’ll have a lot of fun!

Ethics of Photoshop

Photoshop is a powerful tool for photo editing. It gives you the ability to make wonder works of art and edit you own photos. However, this software also allows people for unethical, deceitful, and even illegal use.

Unehtical

The photo to the left is my attempt at retouching a  photo of myself (for lack of a better subject haha). Don’t  the two look different? I don’t think I’m a bad looking gal  but I must admit that the second one does look better.  What do you think?

What is considered unethical use of  Photoshop? Well  ethics is a controversial topic – what may be unethical to  one person, would be ethical to another. Would is be  ethical for check personal email or facebook while at  work? Ethics are based on what a person finds right or  wrong. But what are some ways Photoshop can be used  in unethical ways?

The Photoshop Effect is a series on Youtube about  retouching in magazines. How much is too much? Tim  Lynch, the photographer and retoucher interviewed  in The Photoshop Effect Pt 1, says  that magazines often just assume that readers already  know that the photos in the magazines are retouched.

Think about it:

• Should magazines have a disclaimer saying that the photos are retouched?
• Is it right that magazines retouch their photos to a point of impossible perfection?

You can view the first part of the interview here.

Illegal

More then half the users of Photoshop is illegal! Most people download the program or find product keys online. But how can the program itself be used for illegal use? Well it’s simple, people can pass other people’s photos and artworks as their own. Any signature or watermark on a photo can be removed with a well experienced Photoshoper.

Deceitful

This rolls the ethics of Photoshop and the legal aspect together.      Some examples of false representation using Photoshop was back  when Lance Armstrong was on the cover of Outside magazine back in  2010. Mr. Armstrong posed for the cover  but then the logo “38 BFD”  was advertised on his shirt. It was added via Photoshop and Lance  wasn’t happy about it. Here is the full article.

Not impressed? Well try this example of deceitful Photoshop use:  back in 2009, to prove his theory of global warming, Mr. Al Gore  turned to Photoshop to “enhance” a photo to make people believe  more hurricanes were occurring throughout the world. That’s pretty  dishonest if you ask me! You can check out the full article here.

I love using Photoshop! And I’d like to think that I’m pretty good at figuring out the tools to edit images for myself or for whoever requests something. However, giving credit is crucial! Like if you use stock photos in a photo manipulation, say where to from whom you got each photo from. It doesn’t make you any less of an artist for using someone else’s photos, especially if that person uploads them specifically for other people to use!

Remember: Use you Photoshop powers for good, not evil!