Digital Studies Semester 1 - University Of Suffolk

Q1

What are the uses and benefits of using Illustrator? (include an understanding of vector graphics)

Unlike programs using raster graphics, Illustrator is a vector graphics based program which uses mathematic equation to draw it’s shapes and text that allows the graphics created in this program to be scaled to any size without any loss in quality or resolution and It’s mainly used for things such as logos, diagrams, promotional material and cartoons.

It’s files sizes are smaller in comparison to other programs in the adobe creative suite, it has an array of tools and features that allow the user to freely manipulate type by creating outlines from text and easily draw clean lines with the pen and brush tools which make it a very good program to use for both Illustration and typography based posters.

Q2

What are the uses and benefits of using InDesign?

InDesign’s main use is publishing magazines, books, leaflets and anything of the sort as well as digital publications such as e-books, it’s very useful for this kind of work due to it’s tools and features that allow the user to work on mutiple pages at once and the book feature allows the work to be spread out between different people and be assembled later and It’s file size when exported as a PDF is smaller in comparison to other adobe programs which makes it easier to send, share and use.

Q3

What are the uses and benefits of using PhotoShop? (include an understanding of pixels and resolutions)

Photoshop is a raster graphics software which means the images, shapes and text used in it are created using a series of many small pixels in a rectangular grid, due to this if Graphics created in photoshop have a low amount of pixels they can turn out looking low resolution and poor in quality however if an image uses more pixels it will look much clearer. It’s main use is photo editing and manipulation such as fixing the colour or retouching photos however it can also be used for Animation, Architecture, Web Design & Graphic Design Mock Ups.

Q4

What are the limitations of each of the software?

Illustrator - Illustrator is a program used to create artwork, not edit it and because of this Illustartor can be somewhat limited in how much it allows the user to edit thier work compared to programs like photoshop. Due to Illustrator being a vector based program, artwork created in it is often made using simple shapes and therefore creating photo relaistic digital paintings is nearly impossible or at least requires alot of skill and patience.

Photoshop - Since photoshop is raster based and mostly an editing software, creating artwork, though not the impossible or particularly bad can end up looking poor in quality. 

InDesign - InDesign is mainly used for laying out existing images and text, therefore actually creating detailed artwork in this program isn’t one of it’s strong points. InDesign links images and artwork by default without actually embedding them, due to this it can be very easy to lose linked files unless the user packages thier work or manually embeds all images and artwork which can result in a large file size.

Q5

Keyboard shortcuts:

Cut – ⌘ X

Copy – ⌘ C

Paste – ⌘ V

Paste in place - Shift ⌘ V

Paste in front - ⌘ F

Type create outlines – Shift ⌘ O

Place in InDesign - ⌘ D

Group - ⌘ G

Ungroup – Shift ⌘ G

Save - ⌘ S

Zoom out – ⌘ -

Zoom in - ⌘ +

Fit in window -
 ⌘ 0

Undo - ⌘ Z

Select all – ⌘ A

Spellcheck - ⌘ I

What is the spacebar used for?

Enables the Hand Tool so when you click and drag it moves the screen.

What is shift used for?


Many Purposes such as Keeping an images ratio when resizing, creating straight lines with the brush tool and can be used in combination with the undo tool to step backwards.

What is alt used for?


Alt is used for many different tools as the alternate function tool, for example with the cloning tool it is used to select a source point.

What key do you hold down to add more items to your selection?

Hold Shift and click on the items you wish to select.

Q6

Describe how you would create a triangle in Illustrator - simple step by step points

- Click and hold the rectangular shape tool, then select the polygon tool

- Click once with the polygon tool to bring up the edit menu

- In the menu change the amount of sides to 3 and click Ok

- Click and Drag to create a Triangle

Q7

Describe how you would create type on a path and then change the start point and the location of the type?

- Use pen tool to create a path.

- Select the Type on a Path tool and click on the path.

- Type out anything.

- Use two lines on either end of the path to adjust the start and stop points.

- Use the line in the middle to adjust the type’s location.

Q8

What are Pantone colours and how would you find your pantone colours in Illustrator?

Pantone Colours are each specified by a single number and look exactly the same on every screen and will print the same from any printer, pantone colours can be found in Illustrator underneath the regular colours and are indicated by a small circle in the bottom right corner of the icon. 

Q9

What is the difference between anchor points and paths?

A path is a line created between two anchor points and the achor points indicate where a path begins, ends or changes direction.

Q10

What is a compound path and when would you need to use it?

Compound paths are when multiple paths/ objects are fused together and act as a grouped object, every path inherets the colour of the backmost path. Compound paths can be used to create a hole in a shape that reveals whatever is in the background.

Q11

What colour mode and image resolution would you use for Print graphics?

You’d use the CMYK Colour Mode and the image resolution standard is 300 ppi

Q12

What colour mode and image resolution would you use for Online graphics?

You’d use the RGB Colour Mode and most would set the resolution to 72 ppi

Q13

What measurement system is used for type? Pt (Point Size)

What size font is 1 inch tall? 72 Pt

What size font is 2 inches tall? 144 Pt

What size font is 1/2 inch tall? 36 Pt

Q14

What does justified mean?

Justified is a kind of text alignment, Justified text is spaced so the left and right sides of the text box both have a straight edge, it works by adding white space in each line so all the lines are the same length.

When would you use it?

It can often be found in publication like magazines and newspapers which use multiple columns of text.

Q15

How do you create an image or graphic with a transparent background?

If the Image/ Graphic has a transparent background, export it as a PNG file to keep its transparency

Q16

What is the best way to select an object/part to isolate it from the background using photoshop? 

The best way to isloate part of an image is to use the appropriate selection tool to roughly select the part of the image then go Layer > Layer Selection > Reveal Selection.

Why this way?

Because using a mask dosent delete the hidden part of the layer and you can use the brush tool to refine your selection.

Q17

What is bleed and how can you set it up in InDesign?

The bleed refers to the guides around a page that are used to ensure no unprinted edges occur in the final printed version. It can be set up when opening a new document in the “Bleed & Slug” section of the document set up window or it can be changed later by clicking File > Document Setup.

Q18

What key do you use to select a source point for the clone tool?

Click the Clone tool and hold down Alt to enable the source point selection tool.

Q19

What are the measurements for the following paper sizes A5, A4, A3, A2?

A2 - 420 x 594 mm

A3 - 297 x 240 mm

A4 - 210 x 297 mm

A5 - 148 x 210 mm

Q20

List at least 5 specific things you have learnt during the digital studies module? and how will these benefit you in the future?

1. I’ve learned how to Illustarate in Illustrator using the pen and shape tools, this could be helpful in future if i ever needed to create a logo or icon for a client.

2. I Learned how to manipulate and create fonts using illustrator, this can become helpful in future if i can’t find a good font.

3. I’ve learned a fair bit about how to create publications in InDesign, this will help me in future if a client asks me to lay out a publication for them.

4. I’ve learned how to create swatches in Illustrator, this can help save time when making patterns in future projects.

The Breif wanted me to create several different things in photoshop to become familiar with some new processes and overall expand my understanding of the program.

I Used several different process, tools and features in Photoshop to create these final outcomes including Layer Masks, Gaussian Blur, Apply Image, Colour Lookup, Select and Mask and the Spot Healing tool and generally feel like i’ve learn a lot of new things in Photoshop.

I’m quite pleased with my final outcomes i particularly like the Colourised Cowboy Photo as i found the process quite fun and easy to understand, im also happy with the world I created by combining images and feel i can really use the skills learned from it in future projects.

Adobe Photoshop was created in 1988 by Thomas & John Knoll, It’s a raster graphics based program which can  edit and compose raster images in multiple layers and supports masks, alpha compositing and several color models.Over the years Photoshop has become the Industry standard for any kind of raster graphics or photo editing.

Retouching an Image

The process of retouching an image begins with opening the original photo in photoshop and duplicating it onto three different layers. 

On the first duplicate (Middle Layer) go to Filter > Blur > Guassian Blur and adjust the settings until you can only see solid colour and smaller details like loose hairs, spots and moles aren’t visible. 

On the second duplicate (Top Layer) go to Image > Apply Image and adjust the settings so the “Source” is the Photoshop file your working on, the “Layer” is the the blurred duplicate layer and set the “Blending” to subtract, finally set the layer’s blending mode to Overlay and this should exagerate the details and features of the orignal photo so things like spots and hairs are easier to notice. 

Now that you have the layers, select the blurred layer and Alt+Click on it using the Spot Healing Brush Tool, then select the normal layer and use the detailed layer to spot any imperfections in the photo and go over them on the original layer with the spot helaing brush tool. 

Additionally if a person’s facial features seem out of place or you want to give them a different expression you can go to Filter > Liquify and photoshop will open a window that allows you to reshape the person face using achors on the face or using the settings on the right.

Colourising an Image

The process of colourising a black and white picture is actually quite simple. First you open the black and white image into Photoshop and create a new layer on top of the image, then go online and find an appropriate image (e.g. a picture of a white man’s face to colour in a white man’s face), place it in Photoshop and use the pipette tool to obtain its colour.

Then use the brush tool in the new layer and draw over the black and white picture appropriately (e.g. draw skin colour wherever a person’s skin can be seen in the original photo). I also added another layer underneath the coloured layer and the paint bucket tool and merged the layers to add a background colour as well.

Once you’re finished colouring in the layer use the drop down menu found above the layers named “Normal” and change the coloured layers blending mode to whichever works best, personally i used “Soft Light” for this picture but “Overlay” and “Multiply” can work aswell.

Layer Masks

The process of using a layer mask is quite simple and is very useful when you want to combine two images together because it allows you to hide part of an image without pemranently deleting it. Begin by opening both images into photoshop and place you image with sections you wish to remove on the top layer. 

Select the top layer and go to Layer > Layer Mask > From Transparency and make sure you have the Mask selected and use the brush tool to hide/ reveal parts of the layer (Black Coloured Brush Hides, White Coloured Brush Reveals), you can chnage the brushes hardness to make the edges look softer or harder.  

Additionally you can delete or disable a layer mask at any time to restore the original image.

Combining Images

In order to combine several images i began by opening this image of an empty wasteland in photoshop then used the clone stamp tool to remove the name in the bottom right and placed the image of the hooded man in the bottom corner, I roughly went around the man with the lasso tool then went to Select > Select and Mask and used the refine edge and quick selection tools to help remove the background he was on already. 

I Then used the magic wand tool on a picture of a tall building to remove it’s background, dupliacted it, selected the tower in the duplicate layer and coloured it in white and changed the opacity to around 30% to make it look like it’s in the distance. 

I scaled and placed the tall building in the wasteland picture and followed the same process on a picture of the LA skyline which i placed infront of the tall building and i used the eraser tool with a soft edge to delete the bottom of the skyline picture and make it look like its really there. 

I Placed the image of the planet (which already had a transparent background) in the right side sky then duplicated it and scaled it down for the left side. To make the planets look different i used Image > Adjustments > Hue/Saturation to change the colours and finally changed the planet’s blending mode to overlay so it looks like its far away. 

I then placed the untextured versions of the houses in the picture then added the texture in on a seperate layer with the blending mode set to overlay and adjusted the colour balance to make them match their surroundings. 

I used a dust shaped brush with a low opacity to make it look like theres some kind of sandstrom or dust blowing in the wind. 

Finally i Selected every layer and grouped them, then duplicated the group and merged the deuplicated group and went Layer > New Adjustment Layer > Colour Lookup, Clicked “use previous layer to create clipping mask” and selected the 3DLUT File “Fall Colours”.

(This is just a recreation my actual final came out better than this).

Mock Ups

Mock ups are very simlpe to use if you downlaod an existing one, all you have to do is double click on the smart layer’s thumbnail to open it in a seperate tab, place your design on it, click save and photoshop will do the rest for you. 

You can create your own smart layer by right-clicking a layer and selecting Convert to Smart Layer. 

This brief required me to follow the process of creating a geometric line art piece using a picture of anyones face.

I Used Illustrator and Photoshop to create this and have become familiar with tools and features such as making a blend and locking an object in Illustrator and using Alt+Click with the paint bucket tool as a shortcut to pipette tool and Blending modes in Photoshop.

I’m quite pleased with my final outcome, it looks accurate to the final outcome from video we followed and it just generally looks cool, i particularly like the shapes filled with shading lines.

Pen & Tablet

With early incarnations dating back to around the 1980s, A Graphics tablet is a device that is drawn onto using a special pen, this input is then sent onto the computer to control things, very much like a mouse. They have really improved over the years and many designers use them all the time when creating digital work, they are very helpful due to thier precision and can make crafting digital work from scratch very easy. 

Begin by opening a new Illustrator document and placing your image in the centre of your artboard, then click on the image and go to Object > Lock > Selection so the image doesn’t move. Then using the pen tool use straight lines to draw around the head of the person in your image and make sure to set the fill to none and the stroke colour to white. 

Now that you have the outline, start drawing lines across the persons face in areas you feel define the shape of your image. If you don’t want to draw a full loop press enter on your keyboard to finish drawing a line and if you want to add a line from an anchor point press Shift or else the pen tool will delete that anchor point.  Additionally you should use the Circle shape tool to trace the person’s eyes.

After drawing all the shapes across the image you can begin adding shading lines inside some of the shapes, you can do this by either manually drawing them in with the pen tool or you can draw two lines and blend them. In order to blend you should draw two lines on either side of a shape, select them both by clicking them and holding shift, then go to Object > Blend > Make, this will fill the gap in between the lines with more lines, additionally you may have to go to Object > Blend > Blend Options and adjust the spacing to Specified steps or specified distance. Additionally, if a blend doesn’t work quite right you can go to Object > Blend > Expand to turn each line into an individual shape and correct it with the direct selection tool. 

Overall i’m not too happy with this project, though i did end up with my own font and created every possible character i could i’m not too happy with it’s appearance.

I used the programs Illustrator and Glyphr during this project and learned about how draw a character in Illustrator and import it into Glyphr where it can be edited and used to create a font.

I’m not very pleased with my final outcome for this project as something went wrong and the letters in this font have gaps in them in places two lines overlap also the lowercase characters are much thicker than the capitals which just looks strange and the £, “ and ‘ didn’t come out right dispite the fact i created SVGs for them however most of the capital letters and some of the various characters in the bottom two rows look fine so it isn’t all bad and it’s at least legible. Though ultimately i’ve learned from this that i shouldn’t draw each character on a seperate layer in illustrator then export them as SVGs because it exports every layer despite wheather they’re hidden or not, this was the problem with my first font.

Designing a Typeface

When creating my Typeface i used the programs Glyphr Studio and Illustrator. 

I began by drawing the individual characters in illustartor using a guide, then i exported each character as an SVG file, I initially tried giving each character in my font a face but when importing the SVGs something went wrong, every character i had drawn would be imported on top of one another and make a mess, i couldn’t figure it out so i started again and stuck to a more hand drawn look. 

I placed the SVG files into Glyphr appropriatley (e.g. i placed the capital A svg in the Capital A section) by dragging and dropping them in and used the Glyph edit menu to make any minor adjustments to size and placement. 

I feel i have accomplished what the brief wanted me do create by taking 4 editorials and creating a publication for each one, they all look visually appealing and appropriate to the content of the editorial.

I used the knowledge learned from the previous project about publication design and InDesign to create these such as using columns to lay out the text.

I wanted each magazine spread to use appropriate imagery, layout, font and colour for each editorial and i feel i have been successful in doing this, for the space station one i used mostly black and white to relate to space, i gave the skepta one a general “street” look to relate to his style of music and audience. In the Accountant one i’ve used the same colours as the poster for the title and I designed the fashion one while keeping current fashion trends in mind which influenced my choice of font and colour.

In order to get an understanding of how each of my editorials should look i’ve looked at a few examples of magazine spreads covering the same topics.

Space Magazine

Overall this magazine is a bit boring however i like the use of the ricket lifting off as a part of the background and the black covering the background with the white text on top kinda reminds me of stars in space. I think this spread has some decent concepts but i feel it could have benifitted from a more interesting layout and maybe less black in the background.

Music Magazine

This spread looks pretty good overall, it uses an appropriately “Grungey” font to give it an urban look and i like how a majortiy of it is taken up by a photo of the artist so you can clearly see who the article is talking about.

Film Magazine

I really like how the designer layed this spread out so the text fills up an area of the photo that has nothing in it so it actually looks like part of the picture and it dosent obstruct anything important. It also uses very iconic imagery, anyone could immediatley tell this is about james bond because the photo focuses on daniel craig and the aston martin.

Fashion Magazine

In order to make these Editorial spreads i used a lot of the same processes from the previous InDesign project, creating a new 10 page InDesign document and having a quick read of each editorial before continuing.

The first one i worked on was the China Space Station one, i began by looking up images related to the story and found a very nice, high quality image of the rocket actually taking off and after realising it was wide enough i decided to use it for the background, this worked very well as the rocket and building in the image were big enough to take up an entire page. I Also found an image of the astronauts before they took off and decided this could be used on the other page, i wanted to keep it to a 3 column layout so i made the image large enough to take up two columns and let the title take up the other. 

I then began alligning the text, i placed it in a text box that took up the rest of the page, changed it’s text frame options to fit a 3 column layout and placed a transparent grey rectangle behind to make it easier to read. 

I was then faced with the problem of the text looking too crapped and illegible so i started reading it and looked for appropriate points where i could press enter and leave a gap inbetween the lines. After laying out the text in a more easily digestable format i changed the allignment to Justified with the last line to the left so the text spread out and fit the columns better.

The second editorial i did was the Skepta one, because skepta is a grime artist i wanted the design to look very urban. I began by finding a good image of skepta on google, opening it in photoshop and going to Image > Adjustments > Threshold to change it into monochrome and make it look rougher. 

I placed the image onto the magazine spread so his face would take up the majority of the right page but with still enough room to place a title, after that i placed the text and decided to try using two columns instead of four because there was more room than the china one and i thought it looked great so i left it. I added the title using a font that matched the rough, grungy style and aligned it to the right so it fit perfectly within the margin, finally I added an image of a white brick wall over the top and changed it’s opacity so the image and text behind it looked like graffiti on a wall.

The Third editorial i made was the Accountant one, i wanted this one to relate to the job of accounting by makiing it look like paperwork. I originally made this one but felt i hadn’t left enough room for the text and thought it looked boring with so much white space so i tried again. 

For this one i wanted to have less white space so i used a picture i found online as the backgorund, i thought it worked perfectly because there is a corner in the picture that helps divide the two pages. I still wanted to partially use the paperwork idea so i placed the ripped paper Png back in but limited it to the top right and bottom left corners which was also a good place to put the title. For the titile i tried using a font that matched the one used in movie posters for the acountant and for the rest of the text i repurposed the typewriter font from the original as it relates back to the paperwork idea. 

Finally after everything was in place i thought the text looked a bit hard to read on the background so i placed a white box behind it and changed the opacity so the background image was still visible but there was abit more contrast.

Lastly i created the Chanel Fashion editorial, i wanted this one to match the look of other fashion magazines by using a somewhat minimal style. I began by going online and looking for images relating to Chanel’s Petites Mains and found an image of the inside of Chanel’s fashion studio and a good picture of the designer Karl Lagerfeld. I Placed the fashion studio image in to use as a background and began adding in the titles, i used a fancy serif font that looked similar to the fonts most fashion brands use. 

For the text i tried following a 4 Column layout and avoided placing text and images in areas that would obscure the background, because there was so much text i moved half of it over to the right page. 

This project has been a great introduction into InDesign and publication design in general by having me recreate three existing magazine spreads.

Using InDesign i’ve become familiar with basic tools and features such as Setting up Columns, Bleed and slug and margins aswell as alligning and arranging text into columns, the shape tool and importing images into a document. The last magazine spread required me to use illustrator in order to recreate the unique shapes with the pen tool and import that into InDesign so i’ve learned that illustrator files can be imported much like images and have become more familiar with the pen tool. 

I’m happy with my final pieces, i feel that i have been successful in recreating the original headlines by using the same layout, colour and fonts with different images, i particularly like how i aligned Jeff Goldblum’s name in the second one so it looks almost identical to the original.

Publication Design Software

InDesign

Due to it being a part of the adobe creative suite, InDesign work very well in combination with programs such as Photoshop and Illustrator and is quite easy to use for people who are familiar with the other adobe programs however if the user is a newcomer there is quite a steep learning curve.

Page Plus

Page Plus is the perfect program for a begginer on a budget, it’s cheaper than other programs and it’s start up assisstant makes it easier to learn and use the software however the program lacks some features such as the ability to design phone apps and QR codes.

QuarkXpress

QuarkXPress is a good choice for any good publication designer due to it’s simple user interface, ability to design a range of formats like magazines and brochure or even apps and ebooks and it’s large amount of useful features and tools however it is quite pricey at £675.57.

Publication Layout

This is an example of a very basic publication layout, the text is all bound to these columns and there is only one image displayed in a smaller space in the corner. Personally i think this layout is just boring as there is more text than there is imagery, due to this there is less to actually look at on the spread and it makes reading the text look more like a chore.

This layout i find much more appealing, it has a large amount of text but because it is displayed in three smaller columns and is well spaced out it makes the text look more digestable and easier to read. I also appreciate the image taking up a whole page as it helps somewhat seperate the image from the text which again makes it more easy to read.

This breif required me to recreate these magazine pages.

In order to recreate the headlines I began by opening InDesign and creating a new 8 page document, ignoring the first and last pages this gives me 3 double page spreads to recreate the headlines in.

When creating the document I made sure to give it 4 columns, with a gutter of 4 mm and set the bleed and 5 mm all the way around, this is to give me guides and help me layout the text /images.

For the “made you look” pages I began by placing an image of Jeff goldblum's face on the left page by either pressing Cmd + D or going File > Place, making sure it fit to the bleed. Then I used the rectangle tool to place a white rectangle in front of goldblum’s eyes and a small red rectangle in the top right corner of the left page, just like the original. Then I found a font visually similar to the original and wrote “Made you look” in the white rectangle and positioned it to look similar to the original.

I then used the column guides and created a text box that was the same size as the two middle columns. I then right clicked the text box, selected text frame options and set the number of columns to 2 with a 4 mm gutter to fit and clicked okay, this set up the text box so that anything typed into it would fit into the two columns in the centre of the page. Finally I right clicked the text box again and selected “fill with placeholder text” to fill the text box.

This caused the columns and the "Made you Look" to over lap so I clicked on the made you look and clicked the wrap around bounding box Icon at the top to make the columns fit around the Made you look. I added the other two text boxes, making sure the one on the left was aligned to the right and changed the colours of the "look", first line of the left text box and all of the right text box to red.

The next Magaizne spread had basically the same process, i placed an image of jeff goldblum in, used the guides to layout the text, filled with placeholder text, the only thing done differently this time was the title. I used three of the columns on the left page to draw a text box and wrote “Jeff Goldblum” inside, i then aligned the text to the right and arranged the letters on each line to match the orignal.

This Project’s brief required me to use repeat patterns and swatches to create some wallpaper posters and a custom £5 Note and i have created both of these using what i have learned from this project.

Through the process of creating a repeat pattern, the use of swatches and making the £5 Note i have become familiar with things in illustrator such as compound paths, the rotattion tool, live paint bucket tool, fill & stroke size/ Colour, Clipping Masks, Opacity and swatches.

I’m quite happy with my final outcomes overall, i particularly like the holographic look i gave the queen’s face on the £5 Note also i just generally like the green wallpaper as it has a very fancy look and the Blue, Black and White wallpaper because of it’s colour scheme.