ACG112 Electronic Illustration

Classmates project assembly

• Today's goals:
  • In this session you will share your biography and photograph with the other students in the class, and collect in turn the material about them.
  • You will also design a prototype layout for all the pages in the publication.
• Access the class folder through the lab network:
  • In the Finder, use File-->New Folder to create a folder on the desktop of your computer. Call this folder "Classmates Project".
  • Apple-->Chooser; click "AppleShare" in the list on the left; double-click "ACG" in the list on the right. Click on <Guest>. Click <OK>. If not selected, select the name of item "ACG_FILE". Make sure that the checkbox to the right of "ACG_FILE" is not checked (otherwise it will cause problems to other users). Click <OK>. Close the Chooser.
  • Double-click on the server icon. Find the folder with the name of the instructor. Open it, then open the folder for this class.
  • If your files from week 1 were saved to the file server, find them in the folder "forTheOnesWithoutDisks" and drag them to your folder on the desktop. Otherwise, copy the files from your Zip disk to your folder, then eject and set aside the Zip disk.
• Exchange bios and photos with other students through the class folders:
  • Upload (= copy to server) into the "Put" folder the text file with your bio and the picture file with your photo.
  • As they become available, download (= copy from server) the files from all other people in the class, found in the "Take" folder. Store both photos and bios in your "Classmates Project" folder. Check back from time to time to get additional files, but don't wait to get them all before moving on to the following steps--you can easily add new material later.
• Combine all bios and photos in your own class file:
  • Launch FreeHand (in HardDisk:Drawing:FreeHand folder). Create a new document using File-->New. Use File-->Save As to name this file "YourName-classmates" and save it as a FreeHand Document in your "Classmates Project" folder. Use File-->Save every five minutes or so afterwards.
  • From the Magnification pop-up menu (first from the left at the bottom of the document window), select 25%
  • Select Text-->Size-->12 and Text-->Font-->Times Roman. These will become the defaults for the text you will import.
  • Repeat for each person in the class (yourself included):
    • File-->Import. Select and open the student's bio file. Click and drag to draw a text block on the pasteboard (outside the edges of the page).
      • If the bio does not mention the student's name, add it now by clicking an insertion point at the beginning of the text block using the Text tool (the "A" in the Toolbox).
    • Use File-->Import again for the student's photo file. Place it near the corresponding bio so you'll remember who it belongs to.
    • Continue to add photos and bios, leaving the page entirely empty so you will have room to work with its layout.
    • After importing them in the classmates document, do not trash photo and bio files--you will need them later.
      • NOTE: it is very important to have your FreeHand layout document and all the photos in one folder before you reopen the FreeHand layout--otherwise you will be faced with a time-consuming series of error messages as the program tries to locate each image file.
• Design the overall layout of the classmates document:
  • Use Window-->Inspectors-->Document to display the Document Inspector palette
    • Click the middle Pasteboard Magnification icon (to the right of the Options menu). Make sure Letter size, Tall orientation, 300 dpi Printer Resolution, and 0 Bleed are selected. Double-click the Page 1 icon (in the center of the palette) to display the entire page in the document window.
    • From the Units pop-up menu (last from the left at the bottom of the document window), select Inches.
  • View-->Grid-->Edit. Set the size to 0.25.
  • Make sure View-->Grid-->Show and View-->Snap To Grid are checked (select them from the menu if they are not). You may also want to check the View-->Page Rulers command.
  • Experiment with different layout solutions for your prototype page (each student's bio and photo will be later given a separate page):
    • Your design goal is a consistent design which minimizes the faults of the source material (poor quality photos), and accommodates both large and small amounts of text.
      • Look through the text blocks you placed on the pasteboard to find the shortest and longest. Use these as guides in copyfitting.
      • Likewise identify the largest and smallest photos (you may consider resizing down the largest photos--resizing up is not an option because of the low resolution).
    • Use any of the drawing tools covered in the lectures to create additional graphic elements.
    • Remember to leave a quarter-inch margin around the page to account for the printer's imaging area.
• Optional refinements to your prototype page:
  • Link together text blocks to continue long stories.
    • Use the arrow tool to select the first block to be linked. Drag from the small square hanging below the block to the next text block that you want to link.
    • To separate a text block, use the arrow tool to drag away the linking symbol from the square below the text block.
  • Create a frame for the photograph.
    • Placing the prototype photo in a frame will make it easier to keep the layout consistent from page to page.
    • Start by drawing the frame. A frame can be any closed shape you create with the drawing tools. Basic shapes such as rectangles and ovals work well for this purpose.
    • Next, drag the photo (using the arrow tool) so that it overlaps the frame.
    • While the photo is still selected, use the Edit-->Cut command to move it to the Clipboard.
    • Use the arrow tool to select the frame.
    • Use the Edit-->Paste Inside command to retrieve the photo from the Clipboard and place it inside the frame. Any parts of the photo that do not fit in the frame will be cropped (= hidden from view).
    • You can adjust the way the photo is cropped by using the arrow tool to drag the arrow-shaped handle in the center of the frame.
  • Create runarounds for pictures (photos or other graphics) overlaying text.
    • Select the picture with the black arrow tool. If the picture is inside a frame, selecting the frame selects the picture as well.
    • Drag the picture so that it overlaps the text. If the picture appears behind the text, use Modify-->Arrange-->Bring To Front.
    • While the picture is still selected, use Text-->Run Around Selection.
      • A dialog appears. Click the top-right button. You can control the distance between the picture and the type by changing the standoff settings. Click 'OK' to exit the dialog.
  • Try to arrive at a complete design in preparation for next week's session (which involves duplicating the prototype page as many times as there are students). Any changes can now be made in a single location, while later they would have to be repeated for each page
• Next session's goals:
  • You will complete the document by adding enough pages to accommodate all the students, one to a page.
  • You will also learn additional commands to manage multi-page documents.
• Before leaving:
  • Make sure to copy to your Zip disks the entire "Classmates Project" folder, containing your FreeHand layout and all the photo and bio files.