ABC Level 3 Award in Desktop Publishing Skills - enrol on T7790

24 Thursday evenings from 6.30pm - 9.00pm (with a break for coffee & chocolate)
running from 21st Sep 2006 - 19th April 2007 (projected)

Lecturer Jed Gibbs - email jednet@mac.com or mobile 07970 821877

We are using the most up-to-date version 4 of InDesign as bundled with Adobe Creative Suite 2,
together with other software including Photoshop CS2 and Illustrator CS2

Week 1 - Thursday 21st September 2006
Introduction to the course and software

Week 2 - Thursday 28th September 2006
Exercise 00 from Adobe InDesign CS2 Classroom in a Book begins

Week 3 - Thursday 5th October 2006
Exercise 00 from Adobe InDesign CS2 Classroom in a Book completes

Week 4 - Thursday 12th October 2006
Exercise 02 from Adobe InDesign CS2 Classroom in a Book begins - setting up Master Pages, grids and guides.

Week 5 - Thursday 19th October 2006
Exercise 02 from Adobe InDesign CS2 Classroom in a Book completes

Half Term - Thursday 26th October 2006 - no session

Week 6 - Thursday 2nd November 2006
Putting skills into practice - devise a suitable personal project which can realistically be completed before the end of term.

Week 7 - Thursday 9th November 2006
Continuing self-directed project.

Week 8 - Thursday 16th November 2006
Continuing self-directed project.

Week 9 - Thursday 23rd November 2006
Continuing self-directed project.

Week 10 - Thursday 30th November 2006
Continuing self-directed project. 3 x A4 Handouts on choosing a font for magazine or book body text.

Week 11 - Thursday 7th December 2006
Continuing self-directed project. Using a second copy of text pasted in place and offset slightly to create a hard drop-shadow effect, perhaps combined with a thin stroke on upper text and even a drop sahdow or glow effect from Object>Drop Shadow. Introduction to using the Pen Tool to create clipping paths in Photoshop. 2 x A4 handouts on Pen Tool and 4 x A4 from MacUser leading article discussing the merits of QuarkXPress 7 vs InDesign CS2.

Week 12 - Thursday 14th December 2006

Christmas Holidays - no sessions

Week 13 - Thursday 4th January 2007
Introducing Adobe Illustrator:
The Illustrator interface has many similarities to Adobe Photoshop. Pen and brush are the fundamental vector tools you need to master to draw editable paths. Other similar vector programs include Macromedia Freehand, Flash and Coreldraw.

Using the gradient mesh tool and transparency.

Week 14 - Thursday 11th January 2007
New features in Illustrator CS include a 3D tool for producing extruded text and simple geometries useful for Web buttons.

Week 15 - Thursday 18th January 2007
Use Multimap.com, Streetmap.co.uk, Google Maps UK or Google Maps US to get a suitable template to trace over for scale. Keep your version simple, showing only the important and relevent roads, then save and do a 'save as' to make a copy, and try different stroke widths, colours and graphic styles to make variations quickly. Flash map of Ho-Am Museum Garden

Week x - Thursday 25th January 2007
Postponed because of 'flu. Session added on Thursday 19th April or 26th April.

Week 16 - Thursday 1st February 2007
Illustrator's vector tools are ideal for creating a stylised cartoon character. Scan in a drawing as a template layer, then draw over it to recreate your favourite 2D hero or make your own.
Complete your cartoon character using flat colours and simple lines. Once done, experiment with colours, gradients and styles. Use layers to add extra elements such as coffee cups, guns or TNT to make your version unique or to tell a narrative.

Week 17 - Thursday 8th February 2007
Macromedia's Freehand can do much of what Illustrator can do, plus it has a couple of unique tools such as the perspective grid and multiple pages so you can use it to produce brochures and short magazines.

Exporting your Illustrator files using 'Save for web' to create jpeg or gif files.

Week 18 - Thursday 15th February 2007

Half Term - Thursday 22nd February 2007 - no session

Week 19 - Thursday 1st March 2007
Completing cartoon characters and maps, working on notes.

Week 20 - Thursday 8th March 2007
Portfolio reviews, completing projects and evaluative notes.

Week 21 - Thursday 15th March 2007
Portfolio reviews, completing projects and evaluative notes.

Week 22 - Thursday 22nd March 2007
Creating Acrobat Portable Document Format (pdf) files as email proofs or for documents to be put online or printed. Can be read by most browsers or using the free Adobe Acrobat Reader or Apple's Preview application. CreativePro article about an ad using Dingbats

Week 23 - Thursday 29th March 2007
A look at QuarkXPress - long established DTP software, similar in most respects to rival InDesign. You can download a free 30 day trial and some QuarkEd training. Quark 7.1 review

odd video training for CS2 and CS3 at yabbadobedoo

Easter Holidays Monday 2nd April - Friday 13th 2007
no sessions, (nor 19th April, my son's Birthday)

Week 24 - Thursday 26th April 2007
Last session: submitting portfolios please! (this evening replaces the postponed session when I had 'flu).
Once you are done, perhaps explore the QuarkXPress 7 demo and create a business card or letterhead design to add to your portfolio and to your range of skills.

Spot colours, specials, varnishes, duotones, tritones, EPS colours...

FREE open source desktop publishing software for macs and windows PCs from www.scribus.net

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