But what about the simple, time-intensive tasks graphic designers tediously undertake? Things such as identifying a font, changing a CSS style, or choosing a complimentary color can take hours away from more “important” tasks such as creating your designs and choosing imagery. The creative can be stifled by the banal.

Some of my favorite productivity software for graphic designers include:

FileZilla — An FTP application that lets you instantly edit server-side files. This comes in handy when you need to make a simple CSS change or swap a banner image.

7-ZIP — Lets you compile, compress, and unpack a myriad of file types that the built-in Windows application can’t. If you work with large file transfers, Z-ZIP and FileZilla are necessities.

IdentifFont — Identify a font by name, style or by answering a series of quick questions.

Open Source CMS systems — Content Management Systems, once put in place, save time and money. When you need to make a portfolio update, you simply fill out a form and upload your file. If you want to change content, add products or do anything else in a flash, there’s probably a CMS that facilitates the action. Learn to design and find a good developer (if you don’t code) for systems such as Wordpress, Joomla! and Drupal. Content is still king, and Open Source CMS is here to stay.

Color scheme generators/color wheels — Here’s a great list of 25 color scheme generators.

Whatsitscolor.com — Upload an image or submit a link to an image and Whatsistscolor generates a color scheme based on the colors in the image. This is valuable if you like the look of a website, brochure or postcard and want to emulate its color scheme. Color Hunter does the same, perhaps slightly cleaner.

Don’t forget that Photoshop, Illustrator, Flash, Quark and other software have add-ons, plug-ins, actions and a whole host of other time-saving devices available for free download. Try this list of Photoshop plug-ins for starters.

Of course, software suites such as Microsoft Office and OpenOffice deserve a mention, as well as the many commercial project management applications. For free and simple project tracking, check out FreeMind.

Image CC License Flickr.

©2009 PsPrint Blog. All Rights Reserved.

Step 1 – Draw on a piece of paper, or draw using your computer, the number of spreads that will be in your completed document. For this example we have an eight-page brochure, so we have a total of four spreads. TIP: For those of you new to saddle-stitched documents, you must work in four-page increments, because each sheet of paper that creates your spread is equal to four pages.

Step 2 – Start with the right side (or cover) of the first spread and label it No. 1. Follow in a zigzag pattern to the left page of the next spread and label that one No. 2, keep this zigzag numbering pattern until you get to the bottom (or center spread), then go directly across from left to right.

Step 3 – Return back up the page ladder in the same zigzag number pattern until you get back to the top with your last page (or back cover).

Step 4 – Here is the total pattern top to bottom and bottom to top right to left. Arrange your pages and save it as a separate document.

You’re in luck if you own InDesign
If you are the proud owner of the latest Adobe Design or Master Creative Suite collection, then you have InDesign. This means you don’t even have to worry about manually arranging your reader spreads into printer spreads, because InDesign has a feature that will do it for you automatically; however, InDesign refers to printer spreads as imposition.

While imposing pages, you can change settings to adjust spacing between pages, margins, bleed and creep. Be sure to contact your printer for these specific settings. The layout of your document is not affected, because InDesign handles the imposition in the print stream. No pages are shuffled or rotated in your document. If you need to send your printer a PDF file, just make sure you are printing to the Adobe PDF driver.

Here are the steps to impose your InDesign document:

1. Choose File > Print Booklet.
2. If a printer preset has the settings you want, choose it in the Print Preset menu. To use the print settings (as they appear in the Print dialog box) of the current document, choose Current Document Settings from the Print Preset menu.
3. If you don’t want the entire document to be imposed, select Range in the Setup area and specify which pages to include in the imposition.
4. Use hyphens to separate consecutive page numbers and commas for nonadjacent page numbers. For example, typing 3-7, 16 imposes pages 3 through 7 and 16. Note: If you have divided the document into sections of page numbers, you should enter section page numbers (such as Sec2:11) in the Range field.
5. To change settings such as printer’s marks and color output, click Print Settings. Using the options on the left, change settings as needed, and then click OK.

In the Print Booklet dialog box, specify other booklet setup options as appropriate, and then click Print.

Whether it’s a simple eight-page brochure or a more complex 100-page annual report, knowing how to create manually or through your design software printer spreads is invaluable. Your printers pre-press department will thank you for the forethought.

©2009 PsPrint Blog. All Rights Reserved.

There are a few other new terms to get used to as well, so here is a little QuarkXPress-to-Adobe InDesign translation chart:

Runaround = Text Wrap
Text Box = Text Frame
Item = Object
Get Text = Place

While the terminology is different, the concepts are pretty much the same. The other thing Quark users need to adjust to with InDesign is working with pallets instead of dialog windows. In this tutorial we will go through a text wrap step-by-step in InDesign.

Step 1 – Select the object you would like to wrap

Select the object you would like to wrap just like you would do in Quark. Then take a look at your text wrap pallet (Window Menu>Text Wrap). You will notice there are five icon buttons at the top of the pallet to select what kind of wrap you would like to place on your object. The default is to have no wrap, which is the first icon button on the very left.

Step 2 – Choose your wrap

The first wrap choice (second button from the left) is the wrap around bounding box button, which will do exactly what it states and wrap all four sides of the bounding box as seen in the example below.

You may notice our example has a picture within a round shape. If you wish to have the text follow that shape you would select the second wrap (third button from the left), the wrap around object shape. Now, perhaps our image is going to be in the middle of text but we only want it to wrap on the top and bottom or just the top of the image. That is where the last two buttons would be used, jump object and jump to next column. For the sake of this example we will be wrapping our text around our object shape.

Step 3 – Give your object some breathing room

Now that you’ve chosen to wrap your object you can type in your exact offsets for the top, left, bottom and right sides of your object (if you are using the wrap around bounding box, when using wrap around object shape it treats all sides equally) to move the type away from the bounding box. Or just use the up and down arrows next to each offset to increase or decrease the amount in 1/16-inch increments. That’s really all there is to it, but there are some different options we will review next.

Wrapping objects with masks or clipping paths

What if your object isn’t in a specific shape frame and has a mask or clipping path applied? The wonderful news is that InDesign can detect this and all you have to do is tell it to use it. Under your text wrap pallet select show options (see example below).

You will notice a drop-down menu labeled wrap to under your wrap options. Here you will be able to see if your image has a quick mask/alpha channel or Photoshop path applied to it that you can instruct your wrap to follow. Only the options available will show in black text.

After selecting alpha channel you can see how the wrap follows the contours of the object.

Object layer placement with text wrap doesn’t matter in InDesign

This used to really bother me about Quark. You have to worry about if the text frame was behind or in front of the object to wrap or not wrap the text around the object. That’s not how it works in InDesign. Text within a frame will wrap an object no matter what its level is in the layers. If you don’t want a particular text frame to wrap no matter what object is around it then select the text frame, go to Object menu > Text Frame Options and select Ignore Text Wrap.

This tutorial is not exhaustive of all the text wrap options so designers if there is something about text wraps that you feel is important to know in InDesign please share in the comments. Happy wrapping!

©2009 PsPrint Blog. All Rights Reserved.

Unfortunately, that’s not a possibility. The need for multiple software licenses, cross-program incompatibilities and budget constraints force businesses to choose one over the other. While QuarkXPress has won its share of individual battles, Adobe InDesign has emerged as the clear winner of the war.

Without going into whether one desktop program is better than the other (Personally, I don’t care — the way I see it, if you learn how to use either software correctly you can tackle most applications with ease and speed), it’s fair to say that InDesign has quickly become the better market performer.

The reason? Diversification and smart marketing come to mind. QuarkXPress is the lone horse in Quark’s stable; no matter how you order it, it always comes the same way. There are no choices, no bonuses. Adobe, on the other hand, routinely packages InDesign with its Creative Suite, which has a twofold effect: 1) Customers who purchase other Adobe software such as Photoshop, Illustrator and Dreamweaver are introduced to InDesign and realize they don’t need to buy another software package to handle layout; and 2) customers see value in buying all of their publishing software in one package, especially since files are practically guaranteed to be cross-compatible.

Adobe InDesign is king, and not necessarily because it’s better in function, but because it is better packaged and marketed. By diversifying the company’s product offering, Adobe has created opportunities to sell other products all-in-one and has taken a commanding hold of the market.

Are you a one-product wonder or do you diversify?

©2009 PsPrint Blog. All Rights Reserved.