Art 39510 3AD Electronic Design I

Weekly Topics Outline
Week1 Introduction and Illustrator exercises.
IIntro to graphics on the Mac. The difference between vector and raster-based images. Tour of tools, type and basic techniques in Illustrator for building shapes. Use of the pen tool, layers, grouping and stacking. Scanning, importing a scanned image to use as a template. Practice exercises in Illustrator, the silhouette project, printing.

Week 2 Graphic identity and its application to promotion pieces. Creating an identity symbol (logo) which will be applied to a a variety of materials. Exploration of type in Illustrator. Making compound shapes in Illustrator, fills and strokes. Research and sketches for identity symbol. Development of 4 versions.

Week 3 Week 3: Revisions to logo, application to banner ad.
Text in Illustrator: formatting, text on a path, in an object. Converting text to outlines. Use of pathfinders, making compound paths. Working with layers. Touch up logo. Apply logo to web banner design.

Week 4 Concept sketches for multi-page promotion piece.
Design of a promotion piece incorporating the logo and adding type and images. Transformations: scale, rotate, skew. Duplication, repetition, image blend. Working with text blocks in Illustrator.Color and fill techniques, including pattern fills.

Week 5 Final versions of baner ad and promotion piece(s).
Other image and text techniques. Masking, compound paths and transparency. Final Printing.

Week 6 Poster Project.
Design of 4 small poster images integrating image and type, demonstrating 3 mixes of type and image: all-type approach, illustration and type, photography and type; 2 versions for each. For week 6: All-type poster, 2 versions. Creating a grid in Illustrator, placing type and image on the grid; module-based design. Text boxes, creating columns. Special text effects. Transparency and masking in Illustrator.

Week 7 Illustration & type poster, 2 versions.
Masking and transparency, Techniques for building images with pathfinders and blends. Using the variable width pen.

Week 8 Illustration & type poster, 2 versions.
Masking and transparency, Techniques for building images with pathfinders and blends. Using the variable width pen.

Week 9 Poster Project.
Adjustments to designs for the posters. Color printing.

Week 10 Newsletter.
nameplate and grid. Elements of newsletter design: nameplate, headlines, subheads, pullquotes, text, captions, initial caps. Defining the “look” for the newsletter, setting up grids and using placeholders to indicate images. Overview of InDesign: box metaphor, master pages. Choosing color in InDesign: spot and process.

Week 11 Newsletter: adding images. Scan and retouch images for the newsletter.
Place in InDesign. Add headlines, subheads and graphic elements. Intro to text in InDesign: formatting text,paragraph formats and tabs, font usage. Rough placement of all text.

Week 12 Newsletter: adding type.
Placement of text in InDesign, text adjustments. Tracking and kerning, text insets, hyphenation, special characters (em, en dash, bullets, curly quotes).Controlling type with style sheets.

Week 13 Newsletter: adjustments to type and images.
Adjustments to type and images, spellchecking, font and image usage, invisible characters, find/replace.

Week 14 Newsletter: final adjustments and printing.