It’s time to show off what you’ve learned and created this semester, by creating a portfolio that you can hang on to and show to others. Whether you signed up for this course next year or not (and I sincerely hope that you did!), I want you to have something that shows that you made some cool things and learned some new skills and techniques in this course. If you have something impressive and interesting, it will be great to look back on later in life and may even help you to get a job or apply for other opportunities that may come up in life!

Using InDesign, you’ll put together a multi-page document that combines your best work from the course and describes some of the things you’ve learned and created along the way.

Using Adobe InDesign software create a MINIMUM eight-page portfolio of your best work completed in Graphic Tech. Page size is letter (8.5X11 inches) and orientation Landscape (horizontal) or Portrait (vertical). This portfolio will serve as the final exam for this course.

Original files must be PLACED into your document. Check for missing links or other errors using the Preflight Panel before you attempt to hand in. The finished portfolio must be properly packaged without any missing links and handed in to your usual folder. You may have a printed copy if you wish.

Your portfolio should include:

1. An opening page: Title, image (either a photo of you or one of your best pieces of work), your full first and last name, section (class), and graphic design elements that make the page aesthetically pleasing. (Use contrast, high quality, appealing elements, effective colour choices, etc.)
2. AT LEAST one Illustrator project that you created.
3. AT LEAST one InDesign project that you completed.
4. AT LEAST one Photoshop project that you completed.
5. AT LEAST one other project of your choice.
6. A final summation of what you learned, accomplished, or gained from the course.

EACH PAGE will contain enough information to explain the project/process/software to someone who did not take the course. Your parents, relatives, friends not in the course, or a prospective employer should be able to look at your project and understand the following things:

• What was the goal/objective/assignment? What were you supposed to learn/include/accomplish?
• What was your personal goal – how did you figure out what you were going to create/do/accomplish? Was your goal to make something classy, interesting, silly, serious, weird, etc.?
• What steps were involved in completing the task?
• What did you have to learn in order to complete the task?
• What did you struggle with along the way?
• How do you feel about your work in hindsight?
• What would you do differently if you had to do this project again?

Make this as informative, interesting, and appealing as you can. This will show that you learned and accomplished something in this course and will demonstrate some of the skills that you should have picked up along the way. You will get a good mark if you do a good job, and you should be able to bring this portfolio to a job interview to show what a creative and intelligent person you are!

Sample pages:

It’s almost time for Graduation, and that means the annual Safe Grad party is coming up! This is a fun way for graduates to close out their time in high school before real life begins. One of the highlights is the casino, where grads can play games with “fun” money.

Your job is to design/redesign the money for this year’s graduates.

Here’s what we used last year:

It came in 5000 and 1000 denominations. The $1000 was green and very similar.

In the past, they’ve made subtle changes by putting in a different photo and changing the year, but it’s looked fairly consistent

I say it’s time for a new design!

Your job is to design new bills for this year’s graduating class

Bills are 6 inches wide and 2.5 inches high. Add a .25 inch bleed, please.

These can be designed in Photoshop, Illustrator, or InDesign.

If you want a photo of the school, look HERE.

If you want a Westwood logo, look HERE

You can get photos of the graduating class HERE

 

Perhaps the most challenging pages to create for the yearbook are the portrait pages. If you can get these pages right, the rest of the pages I’ll ask for should be no problem!

There are many yearbooks from past years and other schools available to have a look at for inspiration, if you’d like. You can see some sample pages of different types HERE

 

When adding elements to your pages, remember what the different areas of the page are for!

The outer box (red area) is the BLEED. This part will be cut off. You extend page backgrounds or perhaps some images or shapes to the edge of the red, but it will be cut off. If you want something to go to the edge of the page, extend it into the red.

Anything inside the black box should be safe, but don’t put anything important too close to that black box.

That’s what the margin (the inner, purple box) is for. That’s your margin and the area that is totally safe to use for whatever you like. Your page numbers sit between the margin and the edge of  the page. Again, you could use that area, but it’s kind of a “danger” zone, where things could get cut off.

 

 

 

Between the pages there’s a “GUTTER.” This is the area where the book folds. You probably won’t be able to see or read anything in that area. Backgrounds and shapes should go into that area for sure. Some pictures can go in there, but try to keep faces out of there. Text should NEVER go in that area.

NOTE: I am showing you MY DESIGN. YOUR DESIGN should be different! I do not want a bunch of pages that look exactly like mine! You get marks for creativity, and copying me is NOT CREATIVE!

The first thing you may wish to consider is the BACKGROUND. That place holder image that I put on my Parent page is not designed to be used on more than one spread (a spread is two pages side-by-side). You need to choose your own backgrounds. Those can be fairly plain (colours and shapes), artistic (things drawn/created in Illustrator or Photoshop), or a photo that is fairly plain and doesn’t need to be paid attention to. Look at those sample yearbooks for some ideas.

On my PARENT pages, I have 3 layers. The page numbers are on the TOP layer. I would LOCK THAT LAYER and never put anything else on it!

My background image is on the bottom layer. You can choose whether to keep the layer with the background image UNLOCKED

When I switch to my individual pages, I will put all of my page content on Layer 2 (content)

Switch out of the Parent page and onto one your spread (two pages beside each other)

To edit the background and replace it, activate the Selection tool (press v or click it in the tool bar) then hold SHIFT and Ctrl and click on the background. Now you can place something new in there. Of course, not every page should have a picture in the background, so you could use colours, shapes, or artistic elements instead.

Keep in mind that any changes made on the Parent/Master page will appear on EVERY page. If you make changes to the background or whatever on individual pages, it will only apply to that page/spread.

You may also want Westwood logos somewhere on your pages. You can find those HERE.

The makers of our yearbook, Friesens, have provided some images and clip art that you could use on your pages. It is in the Handout folder. Personally, I think a lot of it is terrible, but you’re welcome to have a look and see for yourself. HANDOUT

If you want to use Westwood logo colours in your design, you can put the following values in when choosing a colour:

Maroon : 9f1c36

Grey : 939598

Once you’ve placed your background into that frame on Layer 1, I highly recommend locking it!

 

ADDING PAGE CONTENT:

Again, I HIGHLY recommend locking both the Parent Items layer and the background layer

And make sure that you are adding your new content in between.

At the top of the page (or both pages), you should have a title that indicates which pages you are designing. You can choose to do grade 9, 10, 11, 12, or the staff portrait pages.

If your background is plain enough, you could probably write on the page, but it usually looks better if you put a Fill into the Text frame or put something behind, if you prefer. I like to Fill in my Text frame with a solid colour.

Remember that if you do that, it’s good to move your text away from the edge of the box. To do this, go to the Object menu and choose Text Frame Options, or press Ctrl+B on your keyboard:

I like to add some Inset Spacing on all sides. If it’s linked (see the chain in the middle?), clicking one number upward should move them all. You shouldn’t need to move it up more than one or maybe two times. Remember that if you do that, you will have less room for the text, so you may have to adjust the size of your text to make sure that it fits in the frame

I also like to change my Vertical Justification to Center

If you do this and your text disappears or you notice a little red cross on the right hand side of the Text frame, you’ve made the frame too small for whatever text is in there and you now have Overset Text

If you have Overset text or another problem, you’ll notice an error light at the very bottom of your window:

If you have a problem, you should open the Preflight Panel:

On there, you will see whatever the problem is

To fix this problem, I could just make my text smaller or make the box a bit bigger:

Extending the box a tiny bit fixed the problem and now my text appears and there’s no red cross:

Most importantly, there’s no error on the Preflight Panel

If you want the bar/box to go all the way to the edge of the page, make sure that it extends all the way to the outer edge of the red (and beyond.) You can make that as far past that line as you want. I like to make mine extra big. You can press W to see what it’ll look like:

Keep in mind that part of it will get cut off, but without the guides and lines, it looks pretty nice:

Again, all of my added elements will go between the background and the page numbers! You can have as many layers as you like in between, but I’ll keep everything on that “content” layer

 

I’ve learned through years of trying to solve & fix problems that it’s easier if I take a moment and put the images and the names on separate layers. I’ll add two more layers

Use the plus sign at the bottom of the Layers panel to add more layers, then double click on those new layers and change the names

This step is optional, but HIGHLY RECOMMENDED

My layers look like this:

 

For the next step, I’ll be working on the “photos layer.” I’ll activate the Frame tool (press F). You can click and hold on the tool in the toolbar if you want frames that are circular/elliptical or polygonal for a more creative and unique design

I’ll drag out a rectangular frame. I’ll have to guess the size.

Make sure you can see your Properties panel. If not, all panels can be found in the Window menu. With that frame still selected, I’ll change a couple of options in order to make life a lot easier.

I’ll open those Frame Fitting Options. I HIGHLY recommend turning on Auto-Fit, setting the Fitting to Fill Frame Proportionally, and making sure that they Align From the centre.

You may wish to add a stroke to your frames. That way the pictures don’t just kind of blend together. I personally like to use Westwood logo colours fairly often, so if you wish to use them anywhere, you can put in those colour values I listed near the top of the page (Maroon : 9f1c36 or Grey : 939598).

 

Each picture needs a name. I usually do those below each picture, but some layouts have the names in a list on the side. You can choose how to lay yours out. Doing a separate name box with multiple names in it on the side might be a bit easier than doing a name below each student, but I’ll show you both options.

 

Switch to the “names” layer.

Activate the Type tool (press T) and draw out a smaller box that’s the same width as the picture frame.

I’ll fill mine with school logo grey. Since the picture frame has a 1pt stroke, if I want my text box to be exactly the same size, I’ll add a 1pt stroke to the text box as well.

 

When I use text frames, I like the text to sit in the middle of the box, not the top. Select the box with the Selection tool and press Ctrl + B. I recommend changing the Vertical Justification to Centre. I also want a very tiny bit of Inset Spacing.

. I

Still with the Selection tool, I’m going to select the picture frame and the text frame by dragging a box over both of them

 

I need a lot more of these but I don’t want to go through all of the steps to make them look the same, so I’ll copy those. Press and hold ALT to drag out a copy. To make sure that they line up, press Shift as well. So I’ll hold Shift + Alt, click on those frames and drag a copy to the right.

You can leave a bit of space in between if you like or line them up side by side.

You could keep doing that one at a time OR once you’ve got two, select both and drag those out to make it four.

Once I’ve got four, I like to select again and drag out another 4. 7 or 8 across is probably a good number but you can add more if you like, depending on the layout you’ve chosen.

I’ll turn off my background so it’s easier to see what I’m doing in the images below, but you don’t really need to do that.

I recommend a grid of 7 columns and 7 rows OR you could make it 8 by 6

8 x 6 (names below):

8 x 6 (names on the side)

7 x 7 (names below)

7 x 7 (names on the side)

 

Depending on which you choose, your page might look a little different than mine in the examples below, but hopefully you can follow along.

 

I’ve still got a bunch of space on the right side of this page and I don’t want to add more boxes to the row:

So I’ll select them all and pull the little white square on the right hand side to stretch them to fill up to the middle gutter guide:

Much better. Now I’ll Alt + Shift and drag a copy down.

I’ll keep doing that until I have about 6, 7, or 8 rows (depending on which layout you choose):

 

There’s a bit of space at the bottom now, so I’ll select all of those and drag the square in the middle of the bottom edge down

Much better!

I want the right hand page (3) to look just like the left (2)

Using the Selection Tool, I’ll click in a blank spot off the page and draw a box over all of my frames to select them all

Once they’re all selected, I’ll hold Alt and Shift and drag out a copy onto the other page

I also copied over my banner at the top and took one word out of each box. You can (and should) choose what goes at the top of the page

If you have the names on the side, your pages will look more like this:

 

Make sure you SAVE your work! You really don’t want to lose all of that!

In the next set of instructions, we’ll Place in the content.

 

The Westwood Card Company is hiring, and you’re being considered for the job. Congratulations!

To get the position, you’ll need to come up with one or more greeting card designs. These designs will actually be handed out to people on staff for various reasons/occasions:

• Birthday
• Congratulations (marriage, baby, new job)
• Farewell (going to a different job)
• Retirement
• Condolences (death in the family)

Often, lot of people end up signing these cards, so leave a lot of blank space on the inside (although it doesn’t have to be white! Just make sure it’s light enough to write on and read.)

They can be funny (in appropriate ways and appropriate circumstances) or sincere.

Of course, if you want to make your own card for your own reason, that’s fine too.

Some tips/suggestions:

Bright, colourful, and creative are really important in a card. You don’t want it boring and dull, and you don’t want your card to look like other cards out there. Have fun with it!

HIGH QUALITY, especially ORIGINAL artwork is a MUST! If you’re googling random card elements and backgrounds, you won’t get the marks or have the success that you would if you designed something yourself! Think about using Photoshop or Illustrator to design elements! If you absolutely need to insert images from somewhere else, consider a place like UNSPLASH where you can get really high-quality photographs that you have permission to use!

InDesign is DEFINITELY the right application to use to put it all together, but you could design elements or pages in Photoshop or Illustrator and then place them into the InDesign document.

Ideal InDesign document setup:

If you set up your page correctly, you will see a .25 inch margin (the purple line on the page)

and a .25 inch Bleed (the red line outside of the page)

Any background elements that go to the edge of the page need to extend out to that Bleed line and will be cut off. Any important text or images on top should be kept within the margin.

Page layout:

On your Pages panel you’ll notice that the pages start laid out like this:

We want those pages to all be side by side, instead of those lonely pages 1 and 4. At the top right of the Pages panel, there are three little lines. Click ’em!

Turn on “Allow Selected Spread to Shuffle”

And drag your pages so that they are all side by side

When your card is printed and folded, the pages go like this:

You’re encouraged to put your name in the copyright section (if you want credit) and add some kind of logo. I encourage you to make up your own logo!

Remember that in this program, everything goes in a frame. You’ll PLACE your files into frames (File/Place or Ctrl + D).

When you are done, you’ll PACKAGE your file to drop it off!

Check for errors or missing links!

SAMPLES from previous students:

 

Once you have finished designing your card’s front and back, it’s time to print them out. They are very small so you can fit a bunch of them on a sheet of paper. This part of the assignment is to create the sheet and cut it out, producing 16 tickets.

We will be printing these on 11×17 paper. You DO NOT need a bleed for this file, but a .5 inch margin might help. Create a file in InDesign that is 17 inches wide and 11 inches tall. You do not want or need Facing Pages. Just make one page for now.

Of course, the first thing you should do is to OPEN ONEDRIVE and SAVE your work with an appropriate name:

To create the frames where the tickets will go, use the Rectangle Frame Tool (press F)

Click on your blank page somewhere

Create a frame that is the size of your ticket: 4 inches by 2.5 inches

Put that frame in the top left corner. If you’ve set up your margins correctly, it should be easy to place in the proper spot, but you can (and should) check your Properties panel to make sure that the frame is placed at X: .5 in and Y: .5 in

You should see a frame in the top left corner:

Now switch to the Selection Tool (press V) and click on the Frame

Go to File/Place (Ctrl + D) and find the ticket that you designed. Place the InDesign file!
MAKE SURE you turn on Show Import Options!

When you turn on Show Import Options it will allow you to choose between your two pages (front and back) and will allow you to see the Bleed.

You will import each page separately. Make sure the Pages panel says Previewed Page

and make sure you can see the front (page 1)

You also need to go into the Options box and Crop to: Bleed bounding box

You’ll press OK only when your Place box looks like this:

You should have one ticket properly placed in the top left of the page. If you’ve set everything up correctly, the ticket should fill the frame.

Go back to the Pages panel.

Right click on Page 1 and choose Duplicate Spread

That will make a copy of Page 1

Now you just need to place Page 2 into the Frame. Use File/Place or Ctrl + D and replace page 1/the front with page 2/the back

Now switch to the Selection Tool (press V) and click on the Frame

On your keyboard, hold Alt and Shift, then click on the frame and drag a copy beside it

Click in a blank spot on or just off of your page

Drag out a box to select both of the Frames

On your keyboard, hold Alt and Shift, then click on the frame and drag a copy of both tickets beside the other ones

Now that you’ve got one row filled, you can click in a blank spot and drag a box to select the whole row

On your keyboard, hold Alt and Shift, then click on the frame and drag a copy of both tickets BELOW the other ones.

Do this until your page is filled:

Go back to the other page and do the exact same thing:

Once you’ve got both pages filled, you should be done!

Save your work!

Remember to PACKAGE and hand in

Make sure you have no errors and no missing Links:

Once you have that packaged folder handed in to your OneDrive folder, let me know that it’s time to print your sheet and you’ll get to cut them out!

The 2024 graduating class needs your help! It’s time to start thinking about buying a ticket for this year’s graduation and we need a new design for those tickets.

Here’s what we had last year:

and here’s what we had the year before that:

You, being the talented designer that you are, could surely come up with something even more interesting!

The first step is to design the actual ticket. Later you’ll put a bunch on a sheet and cut them out.

The setup for one ticket is:

3.5 in by 2 inches, plus a .25 inch bleed

These could be designed in Illustrator or InDesign. If you want to use Photoshop, make sure you are setting up your page to be 4 inches by 2.5 inches, and leaving a margin that is about .5 inches on all sides (.25 inch bleed & .25 inch margin). (if you need help with setting up Photoshop properly, check THIS POST. The size is different, so the measurements will change, but the idea is the same.)

You’ll design the front and the back of the ticket, so make sure you have two pages/artboards! You do not need Facing Pages if you’re using InDesign.

InDesign:

Illustrator:

Information to include:

WESTWOOD COLLEGIATE
Graduation Dinner
Thursday, June 27th, 2024
Doors/Reception 5:00 PM, Dinner 6:00 PM
Safe Grad to follow at 10 PM
Victoria Inn & Convention Centre
1808 Wellington Ave.
$75.00 per person (non-refundable)
Table #:

You don’t have a lot of space and there’s a lot of text to include, so don’t add in too much more, but feel free to work a logo in or just use shapes & colours and more interesting fonts to make the ticket look much more appealing!

some samples from previous students (note that the details are not correct for this year!):

 

I know it’s only March and the snow isn’t gone yet, but it’s that time of year when my thoughts start to drift toward summer, my favourite time of year. One of my very favourite things about the summer is that I get to visit a lot of cool music festivals.

I would like you to design a poster like one that would be used to advertise an upcoming music festival. Yours doesn’t have to be a music festival, but it should contain similar information. You could promote whatever type of event you like, or just make a poster like the ones you’d see advertising a new movie.

You could visit my website or the Westwood site if you want to make a poster that we can use to advertise an upcoming event, like FLOTA, our family of schools concert, the junior musical (Lion King Junior), graduation, the graduation pow-wow, or just about anything else!

Make your work CRAP!

By now you should know about the 4 main principles of design (aka CRAP or CARP or PARC), Contrast, Repetition, Alignment, and Proximity.

If you need a review, this is a  pretty good one (although there are many on YouTube)

 

Here are a few different examples of different types of posters that would work for this assignment:

 

and some examples from previous classes:

 

You should notice that these posters contain a lot of information that is categorized/organized into levels of importance. Use Contrast and different sizes/colours to organize your information and show what information is most important and what could be considered the “fine print”/more minor details.

Event posters generally use appealing photographs/images and bright colours to draw attention.

For your details, think of the 4 of the 5 Ws, (who, what, when, where – you probably don’t need to worry about why or how…)

SIZE:

11 inches by 17 inches (or 17 by 11)

make sure you have a .25 inch bleed and extend your colour/images to that bleed line. We will cut off that part, so don’t put anything important in that area.

Remember to SAVE your file in ONEDRIVE with a good file name (EventPoster.ind would be a good example)

Remember to download HIGH QUALITY images and PLACE them properly

Remember to scale proportionally. Do not enlarge small .jpg files.

Remember to make your poster APPEALING and INTERESTING. A good poster should catch the attention of people walking by. Make it colourful and exciting.

When you think you’re done, SHOW IT TO SOMEONE to get feedback. If that person has no suggestions, ASK SOMEONE ELSE!

When you’re sure your poster is appealing, interesting, and useful, PACKAGE everything together and hand it in for marking!

One of the most valuable things you can do to make your designs as effective as possible is to get feedback and other opinions, then revise your design as necessary. That’s exactly what you’re going to do next.

I’ve compiled all of the logo designs that have been handed in and have given you the same feedback questions/ratings that you were supposed to fill out about your own design.

The more feedback you give, the more helpful you can be. You’ll want to get some good feedback about your design in order to make meaningful revisions, so it’s important that you give as much feedback and advice as you can for other people.

You do not have to fill out every question, but if you have any constructive thoughts, reactions, or advice at all, please provide it in the form. You should have already commented on your own work, so you can skip your work on the form below.

This one should take some time to fill out. You can access the form below or AT THIS LINK.

If you prefer to take your time or do the work locally to avoid running out of time or losing your work, you can download a Word document version HERE. You can also view the logos in that same folder.

Your job here is simple. Make me an advertisement (designed for PRINT – although you do NOT have to print it) for some product/service/band/sports team, etc. that you are interested in.

Although you could do this in Illustrator or Indesign, for this, you should use Photoshop.

The ad needs to have one or more images

The ad needs to have one or more block of text.

The ad needs to be creative and interesting.

Other than that, the rest is up to you! Make an advertisement about something you’re interested in. I want the ad to tell me why this thing/person/event means something to you. Get me as interested and excited as you are!

Try to think about an advertisement’s purpose. Where do you see them? What should they do? If I place this ad in a magazine or newspaper, what am I hoping will happen? Those are some thoughts to consider.

You can (and probably should) look at some examples of PRINT advertisements. Online ads can be different, so make sure you are considering that this is designed for print. I have some magazines that you can flip through if you need inspiration, or you could look for some samples online.

Set up your ad to be 8.5″ x 11″ (or 11 x 8.5 if you want to be creative and different.) Resolution needs to be 300 pixels/inch. Since this is designed for print, the colour space should be CMYK.

Make sure you are using HIGH QUALITY images/assets. Use sites like Unsplash, The Noun Project, or perhaps Brands of the World for high quality elements. If you absolutely need to use Google Images, make sure you know how to find LARGE images. This post could help if you need some information/review.

Make sure you know how to PLACE EMBEDDED when you add images to your file. If they aren’t embedded, you will run into problems!

If you need some help getting started with Photoshop, please check out some of the following links:

Photoshop for Beginners

Adobe Learn

Get to Know the App

Get to Know Layers

Get to Know Selections

Add Text and Shapes to a Photo

 

Along with your advertisement file (named FirstAd or ConcertAd, etc. Anything untitled or unnamed won’t be opened!), you will hand in a reflection. I’d recommend creating a Word document and calling it AdReflection, or something like that. If you know InDesign or some other way of doing the reflection, that’s fine. If writing isn’t your thing and you’d rather just talk about your work, come see me at lunch.

Reflection questions:

1. What does a “good” advertisement have/do? How do you know if an ad is “good”?
2. What did you do that is “good”? What do you like about your ad? What are you proud of?
3. What do you think could be improved on your ad? What could you have done better? If you had to do it again, what would you change?

Put some thought into those questions and explain yourself well for full marks! If it’s really short or not in full sentences, you won’t get full marks. This isn’t a writing class, so spelling and grammar and all of that stuff don’t really count, but they always help to make you look more intelligent.

One of the most common jobs for a graphic designer is to come up with a company/organization’s logo. Once a business has a good logo, they can use it to help build their business, and a good logo can go a long way toward building brand recognition and helping to get the word out about a product or service.

But what is a logo and why is it so important?

There are different types of logos as well. Some are more detailed and descriptive, and some are extremely simple.

If you want to see samples of logos for inspiration, I recommend looking at Brands of the World.

If you want more logo design tips, I like this video as well:

If you already know how to use Illustrator, or if you think you can pick it up very quickly, this tutorial is very quick, but might be a good reminder/start: Combine shapes to build a logo.

Here’s another excellent tutorial on how to create a logo

More in-depth instructions for beginners:

WHAT IS ILLUSTRATOR:

For a good overview, click on Help, and go to Illustrator Help…

Click on Discover how Illustrator artwork is unique

There are many more tutorials that will help you to get to know the program. You can access those from the Help menu, then go into Tutorials…

If you’re looking for a good one to help you get started, click the link below:

Get to know Illustrator tutorial

Once you’ve done that, or if you don’t think you need it, you can explore the other tutorials on the left hand side