Publishing Design / Task 1: Exercises

1.9.2023 - 1.11.2023 (Week 1 - Week 8)
Sheryl Pang Pui San / 0349746
Publishing Design / Bachelor of Design (HONS) in Creative Media
Task 1: Exercises

---

LECTURES

Week 1
-
Formats

Different formats throughout the history.

The books/ historical formats

The first printed book: 868CE

Parchment>paper

Week 2
-
History of Prints

Figure 1.0 Brass-Rubbing

The first printed book: AD868

Chinese Publishing: printing from wood blocks - Diamond Sutra

Movable type: necessary step before printing

Pottery

Type foundry in Korea - bronze

1443, own national alphabet - hangul

Week 3
-
Typo Redux

Typography:

Characters in a typeface
- Small Caps, Numerals, Fractions, Ligatures, Punctuations, Mathematical Signs, Symbols, Non aligning figures

Legibility: Open & Well Proportioned

Type size, line length & line spacing

Character & Word space

Paragraph Indent

Week 4
-

The Grids

Raster Systeme 

The grids divides into a two-dimensional planes into a smaller fields or a three-dimensional space into smaller compartments

Purpose of the Grids

The grid is modular in nature

it improves readability and legibility

Week 5 
-
Elements

3 major elements: Type, Colour, Image

Format and grid holding the above elements

Create Variation within layout

while maintaining Consistency

---

INSTRUCTIONS

 

Figure 1.0 Module Information Booklet

---

Task 1: Exercises

-

Exercise 1: Text Formatting 

Figure 1.1 Text Formatting

Exercise 2: Mock-Up Making

Figure 2.1 Book Mock-Up Making (Week 2, 8/9/2023)

Determined the size between A5 and A4 (C5) and made a book mock-up of the chosen size in week 2 exercise.

Exercise 3: Signature Folding System & Zine Printing

We were told to fold the A3 paper 3 times and marked the 16 pages.
We then use indesign to format using a black and white picture and filled in text to generate a zine using the signature folding system.

Figure 3.1 Signature Folding System A3 paper (Week 3, 15/9/2023)

Figure 3.2 Zine Making layout arrangement in InDesign (Week 3, 15/9/2023)

Figure 3.3 Zine Printed (Week 3, 15/9/2023)

Figure 3.4 Zine Printed (Week 3, 15/9/2023)

Figure 3.5 Printed Zine (Week 3, 15/9/2023)

Exercise 4: Van de Graaf

Creating Van de Graaf in InDesign

Figure 3.4 Van de Graaf (Week 3, 15/9/2023)

Exercise 5: Determining Grids

Figure 4.1 Margins Option #1 (Week 4, 22/9/2023)

Figure 4.2 Margins Option #2 (Week 4, 22/9/2023)

Figure 4.3 Margins Option #3 (Week 4, 22/9/2023)

Figure 4.4 Chosen Grid (Week 5, 29/9/2023)

Exercise 6: Type Specimen Sheet
-

Header: Helvetica Heavy

Body text: Adobe Caslon Pro 10pt

Sub text: Helvetica Medium

Pullquote: Helvetica Light Italic

Figure 4.5 Type Specimen Sheet (Week 5, 29/9/2023)

---

Feedback

Week 5
-
Type Specimen Sheet, change the header type to Helvetica. 

---

REFLECTION

Experience

-

We did some exercises including book mock up, signature folding system, zine making and Van de Graaf, all of these exercises help in the further task. I enjoyed doing all of the exercises because it let me explore more before doing layout for the further task

Observations

-

I noticed that when printing our zine, the printer will print the margins beside the paper hence our image will not printed fully on the paper even if we have already arranged it in Indesign. The file in Indesign have a bit differences when printed out may have minor differences.

Findings

-

I learned the basic of publishing design in doing the exercises. To make a book, there's a lot to do in the process and lots of trial and error needs to be make in doing the layout. We have to follow the basic rules in publishing design and make sure out work is legible and consistent. 

---

Further Reading

https://mapsystemsindia.com/blog/typesetting-in-indesign.html

This is an article about tips of typesetting used in Adobe InDesign

Non breaking spaces - The control panel menu has the No Break option that ties the words that have to stay linked together in the flowing copy. (Ctrl / Cmd + Alt + X) 

Vertical Alignment - Use the Optical Margin Alignment option, to adjust the position of punctuations, with regard to the position.

Paragraph breaks - Copy flow can be controlled through the Keep Options functions. In order to keep the subheadings attached to the body copy, we can use the Next Line feature.

Flow and Breaks - Insert Break Character under the "Type" menu, helps in controlling the breaks and flow in the copy.

Be alert of ligatures when it comes to kerning. Before kerning ligatures manually, ensure that the inclusive tracking of style and kerning is set well in advance.