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:

 

So far, we’ve worked with two image creation and editing programs, Photoshop and Illustrator. Now it’s time to turn to InDesign and see what it can do. InDesign is the industry choice for creating professional documents of all shapes and sizes.

Adobe’s InDesign can do everything that Microsoft Word can do and MUCH more, and it does it all so much better. It’s a souped-up super powered version of your usual word processor. It also incorporates the power of Photoshop and other programs to create one killer creator of documents.

See what you can create with InDesign

Explore InDesign basics

One of the many things that InDesign does much better than a program like Microsoft Word is handle multiple pages. Our yearbook is put together using InDesign and it makes it so much simpler to make the pages look good and organize pages and sections. Using InDesign, we’ll create a bunch of other useful documents.

Watch the tutorials below. Those teach you how to use the program. Much of this stuff you WILL NOT figure out on your own, so pay attention to those.

 

This month, the school division is running the annual Photography Contest. You’ve had a chance to take some photos. You should have AT LEAST one that you’re proud of by now, so this should be easy:

Submit ONE photo that can be sent in for the contest

If you have more photos, especially ones of our students, you should ALSO submit those for the yearbook.

Feel free to adjust settings and make the photos look good in Lightroom.

As mentioned previously, there are two different versions of Lightroom. I suggested that you start out with Lightroom, NOT Lightroom Classic (it’s confusing… I know)

In Lightroom:

File/Export:

Choose settings that look like you see below. I want the Image type to be JPG, Dimensions should be Full Size, and Quality should be 100%.

If you happen to be using Lightroom Classic, you need to EXPORT:

You want to know/choose where your photo is going to go, and you can choose to rename your file now in Lightroom Classic, or change it later:

Please export your file as a JPEG file at 100% Quality. Do not Resize to Fit!

Hand in ONE photo for marks!

Hand in MORE photos for the yearbook if you have them!

Once you have a logo designed for a customer, one of the most common jobs for a designer is to come up with a business card.

Your job now is to take the logo that you’ve designed, and come up with a business card that would suit that logo/business.

You can start from one of the templates within Illustrator for this one, but you will need to CUSTOMIZE it to match the fonts & colours that you chose for your logo.

CHECK OUT THIS PAGE FOR SOME INFO

Then, take your logo, and design a card using that logo/business. You can make up a name, address, and phone number to put on the card if you like, or use a real one (like the school’s address and phone number, for example.)

DO NOT hand in a business card that looks like the template/sample! Change the colours, fonts, images, and text to suit your project. Your creative logo should be on there somewhere. The colours and fonts on the card should ma

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!

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.

Should you continue on with Graphic Tech next year (and I sincerely hope that you do,) you’ll do a lot more logo design and there will be more to consider. For now, you can be as creative as you want.

If you come up with a great logo, it might even look good on a shirt or hat or bag or coaster or…

What makes a great logo?

You can even technically use whichever program you want. Logos could be made on InDesign, I suppose, but Photoshop or Illustrator would be the best choice. Illustrator, in particular, is what we would use to make a proper logo because a professional logo needs to be scalable, so having a vector graphic is essential for commercial use.

Later on, your logo would have to be fully original, but for now, you could incorporate elements from places like Unsplash or The Noun Project.

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

Illustrator tips/tutorials:

Build your logo with basic shapes

Add text to your logo

Essential techniques for effective logo design

Build a logo (step by step)

Combine shapes to build a logo. (step by step)

 

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

When I started at Westwood, there were a few copies of this banner in the halls:

The thing is, it was obviously up there for a LONG time. Some of those people are long gone. Schmeichel had hair and wore a TIE! I have no idea who decided on the word DRIVE or the parts that made it up.

Time for a redo!

You’re going to create your own acronym banner. If you make one that might look good hanging in the halls here, we’ll print it on actual banner material and put it up where that old one was!

If you would prefer, you’re welcome to make a personal one instead. We could print some of those on paper and you could take it home. If you designed it vertically, you could hang it inside of your locker.

Think of a word that describes Westwood and come up with what each letter could stand for.

The old one said: DRIVE

• Diversity
• Respect
• Integrity
• Vision
• Effort

What word would fit now? What qualities exemplify this school, its students, staff, and culture?

Again, if you just want to make one with your name or a different topic, that’s fine.

You’ll need lots of HIGH QUALITY images to fit inside of your letters! Take photos yourself if you can. If you want photos from the school, I could share some yearbook photos with you.

If you want to find photos online, I HIGHLY RECOMMEND using Unsplash: https://unsplash.com/ (remember to click on the arrow at the bottom right corner of a photo on Unsplash to download)

Use Photoshop to put it together.

The banner that was up in the hall is 28 inches wide and about 8.5 inches high (300 pixels per inch!) If you really want to try to design something that we could use in that spot, use those dimensions.

More likely, though, we’ll just print it on paper. The roll of paper is a little narrower than the plastic banner, so use 24 as the width or height if you’re making something designed for paper:

The instructions for putting this together are a lot like an assignment you did last year… Remember that the instructions for the size and what to include were a little different then. You’ll need to add more photos and more text this time!

Show Me Your Westwood (Photo Letters)

 

Here are some great school-based ones:

And some other ideas:

Previously you had a bit of practice taking photos, but I didn’t give you many guidelines and didn’t ask to see the photos that you took. Today that changes. You will be asked to come up with 3 “good” photos and hand them in, explaining what you like about them.

If your camera is set to take photos in the RAW format, you will have more ability to edit and correct, but you will have to export or convert them before you can use those photos in another program.

If you set your camera to take photos as .jpg files, they are easier to work with, but harder to edit.

You can use the MENU button on your camera to change modes if you wish.

TWO THINGS to consider that will help you take GOOD photos:

1. Photography is all about LIGHT. The name literally means LIGHT DRAWING. Pay attention to the type of light and where it’s coming from. Sunlight is the brightest, best light available. Your eye can adjust to lower light levels better than your camera can. Just because it looks bright enough in an area to your eye, that does not mean your camera can get enough light. Look for places that are very bright. Then look for where the light is coming from and make sure it is directed onto your…
2. SUBJECT is important. What are you taking a photo of? Is it clear and obvious? If there are distracting and annoying elements that draw attention away from the actual subject, that is a problem that you want to consider. The easiest way to cut out annoying or distracting elements would be to zoom in or move closer/to a different viewpoint.

LIGHTROOM

Probably the easiest way to import your photos and edit them is in Lightroom. There are actually two programs, Lightroom and Lightroom Classic. It’s confusing. They each have advantages.

Lightroom might be the easiest to start with:

To see the important bar on the left side of the screen, press the letter p on your keyboard to access Photos or open this little icon at the top left:

To get your photos from your card into the programme, you need to Import them. You can do that with the Add Photos button at the top:

Then find the card:

or the File menu

Once you find your card, you should see all of the photos on there. They may not all be yours, so you may wish to deselect some of them. You can always delete some later if you wish.

Once you import your photos, you may wish to EDIT them. You can press the letter E on your keyboard or find this icon:

There’s a button that corrects photos automatically that usually does a great job:

Feel free to mess around with any of those settings though! The cool thing about a RAW file is that you aren’t actually changing it, so you can always go back to the original image. No matter what changes you make, they’re always reversible on a RAW file, even if you close the program!

Once you are happy with a photo, you need to Export it to another format to make it usable in more programs:

.jpg is the most common image type, so will work in the most places/programs

 

When you have THREE GOOD PHOTOS, I want you to hand them in WITH A REFLECTION!

Answer the following questions:

1) What is your subject/what are you taking a photo of?

2) What kind of light was present and which direction was it coming from?

3) What do you like about your photo? What stands out to you?

Put that together in a document or PowerPoint or some such thing and hand it into your OneDrive hand-in folder!

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!):