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- Herausgeber: Packt Publishing
- Kategorie: Wissenschaft und neue Technologien
- Sprache: Englisch
Make the most out of Adobe InDesign using this practical guide, filled with design examples and useful techniques
Key FeaturesStep-by-step guide, in full color, from planning the design project to generating the desired output for web and printCreate engaging design solutions for print media such as posters, magazines, books, and brochuresDiscover InDesign tips and tricks to increase productivity and simplify the design processBook Description
InDesign is not just a tool, but a rich application that will inspire you to transfer your ideas into digital designs. This guide will help you understand the design process and get to grips with application tools and design concepts.
This InDesign book starts by taking you through the design process, helping you to think like a designer, and introducing you to the significant features of the InDesign workspace. You'll learn about core Adobe InDesign elements such as pages, guides, and document navigation. You'll then advance to creating, resizing, rearranging, and deleting various design aspects. The book will guide you through setting up Master pages, applying them to pages, adding content, and overriding Master pages content in document pages for a more flexible design process. Finally, you'll explore options for working with text, such as text flow, text frame options, spell checks, and tables.
By the end of the book, you'll be up to speed with using InDesign to build design projects for different mediums and publishing effective designs with expert tips and tricks.
What you will learnDiscover Adobe InDesign’s core functions and tools to enhance your designs for pages, books, and magazinesUse InDesign features such as Layers and Groups to organize contentBuild a complete design project by applying different InDesign techniquesStore design elements using the InDesign library and the Adobe Creative Cloud libraryCreate and edit documents using the Master Page feature in InDesignExplore various options for working with images, shapes, text, tables, and colors to enhance your designsWho this book is for
This InDesign 2020 book is for professionals, non-designers, and anyone who wants to use the InDesign software for creating designs for books, magazines, and pamphlets. Intermediate-level InDesign users who want to enhance their InDesign skills will also find this book useful. The book does not assume any prior knowledge of design tools or techniques.
Iman Ahmed Mohamed is an expert technical trainer and training consultant with more than 19 years of solid international experience in adult training. She having successfully delivered more than 32,000 hours of training, both instructor-led and one on one. Iman's undergraduate and postgraduate education in architecture has contributed to her success as a graphic design Instructor and designer. Iman is a CompTIA Certified Technical Trainer CTT+, an Adobe Partner and Adobe Certified Instructor, and an Autodesk Certified Professional. She holds a master's degree in architecture and a certificate in design thinking and creativity, from Queensland University.
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Seitenzahl: 432
Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2019
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Mastering Adobe InDesign 2020
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Packt Publishing has endeavored to provide trademark information about all of the companies and products mentioned in this book by the appropriate use of capitals. However, Packt Publishing cannot guarantee the accuracy of this information.
Commissioning Editor: Kunal ChaudhariAcquisition Editor: Karan GuptaContent Development Editor: Akhil NairSenior Editor: Hayden EdwardsTechnical Editor: Sachin SunilkumarCopy Editor: Safis EditingProject Coordinator:Manthan PatelProofreader: Safis EditingIndexer:Manju ArasanProduction Designer:Aparna Bhagat
First published: December 2019
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ISBN 978-1-78953-894-6
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Contributors
About the author
Iman Ahmed Mohamed is an expert technical trainer and training consultant with more than 19 years of solid international experience in adult training. She having successfully delivered more than 32,000 hours of training, both instructor-led and one on one.
Iman's undergraduate and postgraduate education in architecture has contributed to her success as a graphic design Instructor and designer. Iman is a CompTIA Certified Technical Trainer CTT+, an Adobe Partner and Adobe Certified Instructor, and an Autodesk Certified Professional. She holds a master's degree in architecture and a certificate in design thinking and creativity, from Queensland University.
About the reviewer
Raghda Ahmed is a civil engineer. Her engineering background has led her to success in life.
Her passion drives her to study graphic design and diverse programming languages not only to follow her passion, but also to help others to learn. Since 2008, she has been an expert trainer in her field. She has a peerless style of delivery and very innovative training techniques. She is an article writer and she has shared her articles with different online magazines worldwide.
Packt is searching for authors like you
If you're interested in becoming an author for Packt, please visit authors.packtpub.com and apply today. We have worked with thousands of developers and tech professionals, just like you, to help them share their insight with the global tech community. You can make a general application, apply for a specific hot topic that we are recruiting an author for, or submit your own idea.
Preface
Designs surround us, everyday and everywhere.
Layout design is the hero behind the design of every newspaper, brochure, book, or magazine.
Adobe InDesign is the king of layout design tools. It gives users everything they need: tools, options, and techniques. It fits neatly into the suite of Adobe applications and integrates with all of them.
People may think that such books as these need an instructor alongside with them to clarify their content, especially if the reader is new to the design world. But it is not the case here. This book is written by an Adobe-certified instructor who knows how to simplify the complex. During her 19 years of experience and long journey in the field of design, she has mastered the ability to present the ideas behind concepts clearly and simply. This book consists of crystal-clear content with step-by-step tutorials that will take you smoothly from being new to the design world to being a real user of the InDesign application.
This book will not only teach you about layout design using InDesign; it will also teach you how to think like a designer and how to get inspired. This book is a great opportunity to start your journey to becoming a qualified layout designer: just read every page and enjoy the trip.
Who this book is for
This book is for beginners, intermediate users, and even users with experience in designing. Quite simply, it is for everyone.
As a beginner, your journey will comprise the exploration of tools and options, where you will be able to enjoy many samples and tutorials. You will feel a great sense of achievement each time you complete a tutorial. Even guidance regarding the know-how that a designer needs and how to think like a designer is here.
Intermediate users will also benefit. This book will help you to be more qualified in using your tools and options. It explains all the relevant details in depth and opens the door for you to more advanced techniques to help you sharpen your skills.
Advanced users will be very happy as well. This book can be used by skilled people who want to know the tips, tricks, and the advanced techniques of Adobe InDesign.
All you need here is digital literacy—nothing more!
What this book covers
Chapter 1, Book and Magazine Design for Non-Designers, will take you on a beautiful journey of describing the design process and teaching you how to be a good designer. It will show you how to think like a designer, how to get inspired, how to come up with an idea, how to sketch an idea, and to prepare it for implementation.
Chapter 2, Getting Started with Adobe InDesign 2020, will be your first step with Adobe InDesign 2020. It will show you why selecting Adobe InDesign as your layout design application was the correct choice. It will teach you about Adobe Creative Cloud, including how to install the application and use it.
Chapter 3, Creating Your First Document, will take you through a step-by-step tutorial to creating your first document. It will give you a good opportunity to work more with Adobe InDesign and one of its main elements, the page.
Chapter 4, Page Preparation and Design Implementation, dives deeper into the topic of pages. It will also cover Adobe InDesign elements, tools, and options that will give you a precise design and an organized page layout.
Chapter 5, Coloring Your Design, is about colors. It will show you the differences between color modes, looking at why and when to use them. It will also guide you in using Adobe InDesign coloring panels and show you the best way of keeping consistency in coloring your design elements.
Chapter 6, Master Page for a Professional Document Structure, will show you another significant feature of Adobe InDesign: the master page, with its powerful role in keeping the consistency of your design across your pages.
Chapter 7, Using InDesign Features to Organize Content, is mainly about Adobe InDesign layers, which are used to get a more organized document.
Chapter 8, Placing and Manipulating External files, is where you will learn about the integration of Adobe InDesign with other applications. Here, you will practice file placement from various applications.
Chapter 9, Working with Text, is the first chapter about text. It will articulate the different ways of creating and placing text, the details of text formatting, and how to save formatting for consistency.
Chapter 10, A Deep Dive into Text Options, is really a deep dive into working with text. It will teach you about the powerful features of placing external text files into your Adobe documents. It will also show you more smart options and features about text.
Chapter 11, Using Tables, will clarify another type of text creation and placement. It's about tables, the various ways of creating them, and their placement and formatting.
Chapter 12, InDesign Advanced Techniques, Tips, and Tricks, will explore Adobe InDesign tips and tricks, plus the advanced options that Adobe InDesign offers.
Chapter 13, Preparing Your File for Printing and Publishing, is the last chapter of the book, and it will show you the last steps you need to take in order to prepare your design for the final stages of printing and publishing.
To get the most out of this book
To work with efficiency, all you need is to be literate in the operating system of your choice. To get the most from the book, you need to read it carefully and follow all the tutorial steps to completion.
Go smoothly from chapter to chapter, and by the end you will be a qualified user of Adobe InDesign. Follow all the instructions provided to get the full experience.
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Check out the following videos to see each chapter's code in action at http://bit.ly/Mastering-Adobe-InDesign-2020.
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Table of Contents
Title Page
Copyright and Credits
Mastering Adobe InDesign 2020
About Packt
Why subscribe?
Contributors
About the author
About the reviewer
Packt is searching for authors like you
Preface
Who this book is for
What this book covers
To get the most out of this book
Download the example code files
Download the color images
Conventions used
Get in touch
Reviews
Section 1: InDesign Powerful Capabilities
Book and Magazine Design for Non-Designers
Technical requirements
Introduction to the book and magazine design process
Engaging the reader
Purpose-driven design
How to think like a designer
The creative design process
Planning for your creative idea
Behance.net – learning from others
What is Behance?
Creating your account
Finding your interest
Collecting your resources
Value Proposition Canvas
Sketching your idea on paper
Storyboarding
Getting ready to implement your design
Summary
Questions
Further reading
Getting Started with Adobe InDesign 2020
Why use Adobe InDesign?
Adobe InDesign frames
Master pages
Pages
Guides
Efficient text placement and formatting
Adobe application integration with Adobe InDesign
Preflight
Adobe Creative Cloud and applications
Creating an Adobe account
Adobe Creative Cloud features
All apps
RESOURCE LINKS
Fonts
Behance
Tutorials
Your work
Installing Adobe InDesign
What's new in Adobe InDesign 2020
Interface new features
House icon and Menu Bar
Removed and added formats
New text features
Variable fonts
Reverse spell check
Support for new South East Asian Languages
Text Frame Options and Column Rules
Find Similar Images
Discovering the workspace
The Home screen
Changing the appearance of the Interface
Opening a file and exploring the workspace
Workspace elements
The Menu Bar
The Control panel
The Tools panel
Panels
Opening closed panels
Single and group panels
Docked and Floated panels
Expand and Collapse panels
Panel menu
The status bar
Saving your workspace
Summary
Questions
Further reading
Creating Your First Document
New document screen
Recent tab
Saved tab
Print tab
Web tab
Mobile tab
Setting up your document
Width, Height, Units, and Orientation
The page number and Facing Pages
Columns
Margins
Bleed
Slug
Saving document setup properties for future use
Document layout elements
Changing your settings
Changing Document Setup
Changing Document Presets settings
Working with pages
Working with View Options
Working with Screen Mode
Page navigation
Zoom Level
The Zoom Tool
The Hand Tool
The View menu and document sliders
Document navigation
Summary
Questions
Further reading
Section 2: The Main Features of a Successful Document Setup with InDesign
Page Preparation and Design Implementation
Getting started
Preparing for the design
Page principles
Page editing techniques
Pages panel
Pages in the Layout menu
Page Tool
Selecting pages
Creating and using your sketch
Page size
Properties panel
Using the Page Tool and Control panel
Using the Pages panel
Creating new pages
Pages panel
Page in the Layout menu
Changing page layout options
Working with rulers
Showing and hiding rulers
Origin point
Origin point location
Changing the origin point manually and resetting the origin 
Units
Using guides
Creating guides using the Layout menu
Changing the guides' colors and creating more guides
Creating guides using rulers
Locking and hiding guides
Deleting guides
Understanding vector versus raster
Vector shapes
Raster images
Creating your first shape
Using selection techniques
More about pages
Duplicating your page
Deleting a page
Summary
Questions
Further reading
Coloring Your Design
Getting started
Understanding colors – CMYK mode versus RGB mode
CMYK mode
RGB mode
Adobe InDesign Intent
Picking and applying colors using the Tools panel
Picking your color
Changing the height of your created rectangle
The Color panel
The Swatches panel
Creating the first swatch color
Applying colors and swatch options
Adding a swatch using an existing object
Adding a swatch from the Color Picker window
Adding a Tint
Using the Eyedropper Tool
Adding unnamed colors
Creating a Color Group
Deleting a swatch
Saving and loading swatches 
Summary
Questions
Further reading
Master Page for a Professional Document Structure
Getting started
Why use master pages?
Working with master pages
Preparing the workspace 
Renaming the default master page
Selecting master pages
Creating guides
Page guide versus spread guide
Using frames
Why use frames?
Frames as placeholders
Editing your frame
Adding elements to master page
Saving the swatch's color
Creating the rectangles
Parenting and master page setup
Creating master B
Changing the master page's number of columns
Overriding master page elements and adding new elements
Overriding design elements in the child master page
Creating the guides
Creating placeholders
Applying the master page to document pages
Summary
Questions
Further reading
Section 3: Importing Files and Organizing Content
Using InDesign Features to Organize Content
Getting started
Exploring Adobe InDesign layers
Creating layers and working with items
Adding colors to the Swatches panel
Creating objects
Renaming a layer and its items
Renaming master page items
Creating layers
Working with layers in greater depth
Rearranging layers
Deleting layers and Items
Locking and hiding layers and items
Working with Groups
Creating Groups
Editing a Group
Editing Group elements
Ungrouping your Group
Summary
Questions
Further reading
Placing and Manipulating External Files
Getting started
Placing external files
InDesign external file-supported extensions
Linked and embedded options
Placing Adobe Illustrator files on Master Pages
Embedding files
Missing and updating links 
Display Performance in Adobe InDesign
RGB versus CMYK file modes
Object Frame options
Frame content fit options
Clipping an image
Fitting frames before content placement
Other Fitting options 
Manipulating the Frame, its content, or both
Auto-Fit option
Placing Adobe Photoshop PSD files
Summary
Questions
Further reading
Section 4: Enriching Your Design with Text and Tables
Working with Text
Getting started
Using the Type Tool to create text
Using the Type Tool
Placing an existing document
Text frame features
In port, out port, and overset
Text flow and text stories
Text character options
Using Adobe Fonts
Loading fonts using Creative Cloud
Loading Adobe fonts using the Character options
Variable fonts
Text paragraph options
Text Frame Options
Creating text styles
Character styles
Paragraph styles 
Applying, editing, and sharing text styles
Applying existing character and paragraph styles
Editing text styles
Sharing text styles
Summary
Questions
Further reading
A Deep Dive into Text Options
Getting started
Text flow options
Manual text flow
Semi-autoflow
Autoflow
More about text frame options
Column Rules
Span columns
Working more with text frames
Text frame background color
Resizing frames
Reshaping text frames
Text wrapping
More about paragraph and character options
Aligning and justifying
Paragraph spacing and indenting
Using Drop Cap
Using the Baseline Grid options
Summary
Questions
Further reading
Using Tables
Getting started
Creating a table
Creating a table from scratch
Creating a table inside an existing frame
Creating a standalone frame table
Converting existing text paragraphs and external documents into tables
Hidden Characters
Converting text into tables
Creating a table using Microsoft Word content
Creating a table using Microsoft Excel content
Selecting a table and navigation techniques
Editing a table
Table formatting
Formatting the table
Formatting the cell
Formatting the content
Summary
Questions
Further reading
Section 5: Advanced Techniques, Tips, and Tricks
InDesign Advanced Techniques, Tips, and Tricks
Using Snippet
Creating a Snippet file
Placing the Snippet file
Placing images in a grid and using the Gap Tool
Working with Opacity
Using Appearance and effects
Page numbering
Table styles
Creating a paragraph style
Creating a cell style
Creating a table Style
Using the Adobe InDesign library and Creative Cloud library
Adobe InDesign library
Creative Cloud Library
Answering common questions and practicing tips and tricks
How can I change the horizontal and vertical units for rulers in one step?
Looking at the same document in two separate windows
Moving and copying pages from one document to the another
Dragging and dropping text
Summary
Further reading
Preparing Your File for Printing and Publishing
Getting started
Checking document spelling
Dynamic Spelling
Check Spelling
Finding and changing words and styles
Using Paragraph Rules
Paragraph Rules
Type on a Path
Using Preflight
Packaging process
Using Mockups
Summary
Questions
Further reading
Questions and Answers
Chapter 1: Book and Magazine design for non-designers
Chapter 2: Getting started with Adobe InDesign 2020
Chapter 3: Creating your first document
Chapter 4: Pages preparation and Design Implementation
Chapter 5: Coloring your design
Chapter 6: Master page for a professional document structure
Chapter 7: Using InDesign features to organize content
Chapter 8: Placing and manipulating external files
Chapter 9: Working with text
Chapter 10: A Deep dive into options for Text
Chapter 11: Using Tables
Chapter 13: Preparing your file for printing and publishing
Other Books You May Enjoy
Leave a review - let other readers know what you think
Section 1: InDesign Powerful Capabilities
This is the first step of a joyful journey with the Adobe InDesign application. It will take you from the outsider perspective to the insider world of Adobe InDesign. It will take you to the first stage of covering the design process, as it will share the principles of book and magazine design with both designers and non-designers. This part will highlight Adobe InDesign's most significant features, as well as the reasons to use this significant application. Then it will end up with a full coverage of the Adobe InDesign workspace and prepare you for the creation of your first Adobe InDesign document.
Enjoy it!
In this section, there are the following chapters:
Chapter 1
,
Book and Magazine Design for Non-Designers
Chapter 2
,
Getting Started with Adobe InDesign 2020
Chapter 3
,
Creating Your First Document
Book and Magazine Design for Non-Designers
Book and magazine design plays a crucial role in our life. It is about putting data, photos, and illustrations together to help people to learn something new or to follow their passion of reading about what they love. Good design can help sell good content, and poor design can stop amazing content from reaching its audience. Design, in some cases, can be the road map for tough content. It can also create a beautiful and joyful environment, helping the reader enjoy the content.
Adobe InDesign is a powerful application for book and magazine design, so if you are not a designer and you are interested in learning Adobe InDesign and working professionally with its tools and features, you will find what you need here in this book.
First, you need to be aware of design concepts, and this chapter will take you through a powerful and successful design process. This chapter is for non-designers who would like to learn about design, not only about the AdobeInDesign application. It covers the design process, how to plan for your design, how to get inspired, and how to sketch your ideas and make them ready for implementation.
The following topics will be covered in this chapter:
Introduction to the book and magazine design process
How to think like a designer
Behance.net – learning from others
Collecting your resources
Sketching your idea on paper
Getting ready to implement your design
Technical requirements
To learn Adobe InDesign, you need to have a basic knowledge of using a computer and its operating system.
You do not need to use Adobe InDesign 2020 just yet, so we will cover how to install the application in Chapter 2, Getting Started with Adobe InDesign 2020.
Check out the following videos to see each chapter's code in action at http://bit.ly/Mastering-Adobe-InDesign-2020.
Introduction to the book and magazine design process
Book and magazine design is a language that uses text, photos, and illustrations to communicate with readers. Adobe InDesign is a perfect tool with which to achieve this form of visual communication. Book and magazine design is impressive; it comprises a significant and rich world of photos and articles.
Books and magazines have different topics to cover and different styles and layouts—each has its own vibe, purpose, and perspective that leads to its own way of structuring its design. Design has different targets, and it has many factors that affect the design style; these targets and factors give rise to endless ideas. Let's have a look at some design factors and elements in the following diagram:
To understand Figure 1.1, let's discuss an example. If we are planning to design a book or a magazine about architecture and interior design, we will not start with the Technical Part, which is the Adobe InDesign application—instead, we will start with the idea, which is theDesign Part.
The Design Part has factors that affect the design and help us select Design elements; thus, in our case and based on our example, theTopicis architecture and interior design, and may target a specificCulturesuch as European, African, Arabic, or Indian. EachCulturewill have its own colors, shapes, and design styles.To design an architecture and interior design book or magazine, Photos are recommended rather thanText, while specific colors associated with certain cultures will make the design more vibrant.So, both Topicand Cultureare factors that guide the designer in selectingDesign elements such as Text, Photos, Shapes,Background, and Colors.
Also, whether a book or magazine is to be printed is a factor, and it will lead the designer to select the properPage size, based on standard sizes, and to select the Color modethat matches ink colors for printing, as we will learn in both Chapter 3, Creating Your First Document,and Chapter 5, Coloring Your Design.
This was only an example to clarify things and, during our journey through this book, we will practice with these factors and elements. To design a high quality book or magazine, you need to know what engages readers!
Engaging the reader
Successful design is a design that can reach a high level of reader engagement, so if you want to catch the reader's attention, you have to think about the three steps of engagement:
Readers' first impression
: This will measure the readers' interest in reading your content, so you need to use elements that catch the readers' eye the first time, including photos, background colors, and the main titles, as they will make a great first impression.
Subtitles and short paragraphs
: These are elements which encourage the reader to continue reading; at this stage, you have to keep your subtitles attractive and your paragraphs short.
Full engagement
: If you succeed in the first two steps, your reader will be fully engaged. You can keep the flow of engagement by adopting convenient design elements for each topic in your book or magazine—at this point, you can say that your design
is successful
.
To apply the three steps of engagement successfully, you need to use appropriate design elements which are derived from the purpose of the book or magazine. Remember, your design is always driven byPurpose.
Purpose-driven design
The identity of your book or magazine comes from different factors, and purpose is a crucial factor of the design identity. A book or magazine may be technical or social, formal or not; it may be filled with information and driven by text or driven by photos.
Also, colors are driven by the design purpose; a book or magazine about meditation, health, or nature will use colors such as white, blue, and green that represent its purpose, and it will be different from the colors that may be used in a furniture design book or magazine. Also, whether you prefer a lot of white empty spaces or condensed text is driven by purpose.
Text fonts, styles, size, or photos and their locations, orientation, and tones—every single element is driven by purpose. Your purpose is always an important factor that leads your design.
In this book, many factors and ideas about book and magazine design will turn into a real design. With each chapter, you will find a way to learn more about Adobe InDesign tools, options, and secrets. Also, you will find step-by-step tutorials to help you to master the design process and to master the application.
We are inviting you to come and enjoy these ideas and sketches, and turn them into live books and magazines. It is not only about mastering the application; it's also about being creative in designing, and applying the design effectively, using Adobe InDesign.
To start a successful design, you need to think like a designer, and this is our next significant topic.
How to think like a designer
Designers may be talented, creative, and blessed with a flow of unlimited ideas, but it is not like that all of the time. You can be creative and you can create amazing designs even if you are not talented or gifted. Design goes through well-studied steps; reaching each step successfully will help you to achieve a creative design.
The creative design process
For a full and successful creative design process, five stages need to be followed, and they will help your design to be effective, creative, and innovative. These stages are as follows:
Understanding the Purpose
: This is the step that you have to start with. The more accurate your output from this step is, the more successful your design. To complete this step, you need to know about the business, industry, service, or product you want to create a design for; what the purpose of the design
is
; and your target audience. The purpose will affect all design elements, so be sure that you understand it well.
Research and Studies
: This is the second step; here, you start learning about the
business, industry, service, or product you are creating a design for. By researching, it will be easy for you to find out what themes, colors, fonts, and images should be used in this field. Searching for existing designs will also help you to get inspired and to understand in-depth what are you going to design.
Use Pencil and Paper
: Take notes, and sketch ideas that grab your attention, as they will be your guide to a successful design. Draw your own sketch so you can visualize the idea regardless of how it will be implemented in
Adobe
InDesign
. It is a creative process, as your pencil, paper, and
sketch
lines will free your mind from thinking about the implementation step.
Implement your Design
: After putting all of your thoughts and ideas together on paper, you are then ready to turn the idea into a design; this is where
Adobe
InDesign's
role as an implementer comes in.
Finalize and Present
: After your design is complete, it is good to use ready-made templates for design presentations; they are known as
Mockups
and they help to add reality to your design before you print or publish it. We will discuss Mockups more in
Chapter 13
, Preparing Your File for Printing and Publishing.
Now, after learning about design factors and elements, and after understanding the role of purpose in the design process and the design process itself, it is time to apply all of these concepts to the upcoming topics in this chapter.
Planning for your creative idea
Let's practice what we have already covered.
So, for a successful design, we need to start with the design purpose; then to have a full understanding of the purpose, we need a clear vision about what field we are going to make the design for, what message we need to focus on, and then who the target reader is.
For example, if we plan to design a magazine about furniture, what are the questions that we need to ask, to clarify the purpose, message, and reader?
Check some of these out:
Maybe we need to ask about the way the furniture is sold.
Which style is it: classic or modern?
Is it about luxury, so there's no need to mention the price, or is price a major factor for both the seller and the reader?
Does the seller plan to sell room by room or as individual pieces of furniture
?
These kinds of questions will ensure that you know your purpose which leads to a successful design.
So, in conclusion, each business, industry, product, or service will have its own design, a design target to achieve, requirements to meet, and a target reader and a purpose.
Understanding the Purpose, then searching for similar existing designs helps a lot in planning for the design. Questions and answers about the design lead to Understanding the Purpose, then Research and Studies, which is a strategic step to help you know your successful design in more depth. Research and Studies is a key step, as we will see in the coming section, using one of the most popular showcase platforms, Behance.
Behance.net – learning from others
In step two of the successful creative design process, research has a massive impact on inspiration; following others' designs helps a lot in finding your way to your own design. That's the full meaning of inspiration: watching and analyzing others' work drives you to find a vibe for your design.
You can search for other designs with the same purpose, and you can study their design elements and what they look like in similar designs. You can study the text, colors, shapes, backgrounds, and photos as main elements in any book or magazine; putting these elements together has endless patterns, and watching others' designs will turbo-charge your imagination and improve your creativity.
The Behance platform will help you research and learn from others, so let's learn more about it.
What is Behance?
Behance is a platform that gathers creative people in one community; it is the best place for networking, presenting your creativity, and getting inspired by others. It puts together creative work from different types and disciplines: photography, photo editing, graphic design, illustrations, architecture and interior design, handmade work, product design, packaging, book and magazine design, motion graphics, and many other types of art.
Behance is owned by Adobe, and now you can use one account for both Adobe and Behance.
Creating your account
You can access Behance by visiting its web page or through the Adobe Creative Cloud application as we are going to discuss later inChapter 2,Getting Started with Adobe InDesign 2020.
If you don't have an Adobe account and (by extension) a Behance account, let's create one:
Go to
https://www.behance.net/
.
In the top-middle part of the website, click the
Sign Up With Email
button:
Type the required information (
Email address
,
First name
,
Last
name
,
Password
,
Date of birth
, and
Country/Region
), then click
Create account
:
After creating the account, you can sign in and, by doing that, you are now a Behance member and you can enjoy browsing this amazing platform.
At the top-right, you can find the Adobe logo, and on the left side of the logo, you will find your profile avatar; click this later to edit your account information and settings.
Now that your account is ready and you can start your tour with Behance, you can find many categories and many artists who you are going to learn from.
Finding your interest
From Behance, you will learn the stories behind each project, the application used in the design, and how to present your ideas; also, you will experience different tastes in color matching and design layouts.
As a designer, your eye is your camera and your memory is your storage—the more you see, the more you improve your creativity and the more you learn about finding new ideas. Later on, you can build up your own profile and share your own ideas, as others' feedback will be a very good way for you to improve.
To search for a specific category, do the following:
Use the
Search and Filter
icon, located at the top-right of the platform. It looks like a magnifying glass, as you can see in
Figure 1.5
.
Type the keyword that you are searching for, then press
the
Enter
button on your keyboard. You will find hundreds of designs that will be a very good source to learn from, and you will learn by watching, analyzing and comparing:
Your results may be totally different from mine, as Behance is a very dynamic website and many designs are uploaded daily.
You can also click the
Discover
tab to find more categories, as shown in the following screenshot (the project preview may also be different from mine):.
Pick a project that you find interesting and check the content, project story, photos, and designer.
In each Behance project, you will find an icon to Appreciatethe design, which is the same as Like on social media, and you can also find icons to follow the designers or communicate with them if you need to learn more about the project.
Now, after searching, you have enough background about similar projects, so let's collect our resources.
Collecting your resources
Earlier in this chapter, we covered design as a purpose-driven process, and we understood this very well. We also put some effort into searching for similar existing designs, as we need to analyze a number of designs to reach a solid idea about what we are going to create.
Here, we need to explore in more depth and create a very unique piece of art that presents good content in a significant way. In the Plan for your creative idea stage, you asked the business owner the message underlying their magazine, but here you will focus more on what the reader would like to read.
Collecting your resources is the stage of gathering both the Data and Design elements of your design. After studying the business, industry, product, or service that you need to design the book or magazine for, and after searching and analyzing competitors' designs and the other existing designs, it is time to collect your resources.
Collecting resources and preparing for the design stage needs a deep knowledge about who your reader will be!
Your book or magazine has a purpose, it should add value and, for a successful output, it should have an impact, as shown in the following illustration:
So, to figure out how your design can add value, we need to learn more about what value is and how to create a design that has a value and an impact, as follows.
Value Proposition Canvas
Successful books and magazines that offer information or data through designs will have an impact if they present designs with value; when it comes to value, the reader is our judge, and reader feedback will show how successfully this mission was accomplished. Having a good design that meets all design requirements is not the only way to create a successful design, but creating a good design that meets design requirements and reader expectations does make for a successful design.
In products or services, if you need to study how your idea can have an impact and will meet client needs, you need to understand the Value Proposition Canvas (VPC).
VPC is a way to study the two parts that determine how successful your product or service will be. In our case, the two sides will be the book or magazine value on the one hand, and on the other hand, your reader. In VPC, your reader has pain and gain, and yourbook or magazine needs to offer a pain reliever and a gain creator; this is how to have an impact.
The following illustration clarifies the idea of VPC as a pain reliever and a gain creator:
You are not the content writer, but you are the content presenter, so think carefully and collect data about your reader as you did before, given the area you want to create your design for.
Try to think in the same way that your readers do, and try to find what pains your readers are facing with similar books or magazines so you can avoid them. Also, think about what their expectations are, and what kinds of advantage your readers want to gain from your book or magazine design, then do your best to achieve them.
All of these analyses help you realize which of your design elements will make an impact, and you can improve your way of thinking by asking yourself these questions:
What kinds of reader will I have for my book or magazine?
Here, you can decide your readers' age, gender, level of
education, and so on. For example, an architecture and interior design magazine for professional architects and interior designers will not be the same as one for non-technical people.
Does the topic I need to represent require more photos or more text, or will it be a mix?
The topic will help you decide how to present your idea, either by writing about the topic or by using more images. So, for interior design magazines, photos of different types of decoration may be more important than text.
Will the topic that I am planning to design the book or magazine for, be about logical facts or feelings and emotions? Is my topic based on
reality
or fantasy?
Is it scientific or moral?
The answers to these will affect the design, its style, the photo selection process, the fonts, and, for sure, the colors.
Is it a general topic or will it be for a specific sector
?
Answering this question will allow you to fulfill your readers' interest in a very specific way, as designing something for children is totally different from teenagers and adults, and so on.
These kinds of question will help your design have a great impact, so you will be ready for the third step in the Creative design process, Use Pencil and Paper, which is the sketching step. Let's talk about it.
Sketching your idea on paper
Using a pencil and paper is the most convenient way to engage designers fully with their idea and to stimulate their creativity. Starting your design using applications will shift your focus from thinking about the idea to thinking about tools, colors, images, and shapes. Starting your design with a sketch will engage you fully with your idea, so, stay focused on the idea, not its implementation—this is how to achieve a successful design.
A sketch is very simple but powerful; it will show you the layout of each page of your book or magazine. It will be a kind of layout design, to help you find out where to put text, images, or illustrations, and is known as storyboarding, as we will see in the next topic.
Storyboarding
Storyboarding is a wireframe sketch of your pages' layout. Earlier in this chapter, we mentioned levels of reader engagement, and how your design elements and the layout of the design can be major factors in achieving a great impact.
At this stage, you need to think about when to start with an image, when to start with text, and when to mix the two. It will also be good to thinkabout paragraph length, titles, subtitles, and text style. Your design elements and their relation to the free space will be affected by the design purpose, and everything we discussed about design factors and elements will help you to choose the proper layout for your page.
Create your sketch, visualize the final version of your design, revise, edit, and prepare your sketch for the next stage of the implementation using Adobe InDesign.
Various ideas about page design layout are shown here:
Now, we are ready for the Implement your Design stage, the fourth stage in the Creative design process that we are going to cover in the coming chapters.
Getting ready to implement your design
Now, after this journey through design, you are now ready to create your design in Adobe InDesign.
Some answers are needed to be able to plan your Adobe InDesign document; you can ask yourself several questions, including the following:
Will the output be digital, printed, or both?
How many pages will there be?
What's the page size, ratio, and orientation?
Will it be a single or facing page?
What will the proper text be (font, color, size, and so on)?
Will the images be full, in a grid, or edge to edge?
What are the
ratio and orientation of the images?
What color theme should you follow?
What kind of space will you need for your design: is it lot of empty space, less empty space, colored space, or filled with text?
Keep these questions in mind; in later chapters, we will learn how to use the answers as a guide for our design.
Summary
Book and magazine design is a very effective way to tempt readers to enjoy the design content.
This chapter was an introduction to what we are going to design using Adobe InDesign because, if you don't value the designs you are going to create, you will not be interested in learning the tools that you are going to use.
We've covered the concept of a successful design and how to achieve it, (such as how to keep readers engaged, how to add value for your reader, and the purpose of your design), so that you can create a design that has an impact.
We've also delved into design elements, along with the creative design process and how it works. We also covered Behance as an effective platform that helps us study other people's work and get inspired.
We discussed how to collect data, resources, and design elements from two perspectives: the purpose perspective and the value proposition perspective. Finally, we discussed sketching and we created our storyboard to be ready for the next implementation stage. In the upcoming chapters, we will start working with the AdobeInDesign tools, and we will implement every topic that we covered in this chapter.
In Chapter 2, Getting Started with Adobe InDesign 2020, we will cover the reasons behind using Adobe InDesign as a powerful tool in book and magazine design, how to install it, what is new in the Adobe InDesign 2020 release, and how to work with the application and its workspace.
Let's get ready for our forthcoming journey with Adobe InDesign 2020.
Questions
What are the five main elements of book and magazine design?
What are the five stages of the creative design process?
What is a Mockup?
What is the Behance platform?
How can you implement a design that has an impact?
Why is sketching your idea before implementation crucial?
Further reading
How to craft more usable, useful, and engaging content:
https://www.invisionapp.com/inside-design/how-to-write-engaging-content/
Want to think like a designer? Try these four simple exercises:
https://www.fastcompany.com/90228701/want-to-think-like-a-designer-try-these-4-simple-exercises
Getting Started with Adobe InDesign 2020
Adobe InDesign is an Adobe application that has a significant role in layout design and publishing. Adobe InDesign is a professional page layout creator, and it has very particular and powerful tools and options that facilitate the design process of books, magazines, brochures, pamphlets, and more.
If you are a user of any word processing application and you enjoy the tools and options that give you full control over your text, and if you like to have the same professional kit for document creation, plus very professional designtools, then Adobe InDesign is for you.
Adobe InDesign
