Today’s Plan:
- Mini-Project #4, Menus
- For Wednesday’s Class: Find a Menu
- Upcoming Schedule
Menus
For the next two weeks we will be designing a restaurant menu. This is a multiple-birds-with-one-project project, since we’ll be:
- Learning InDesign
- Learning Design Process and Grid Layout (developing a mock-up/sketch)
- Practicing Typography
Pre-Writing a Design
Most of you are writers. As writers, you all probably have a different approach to pre-writing. Me? I read and write comments in the margins of a book. Then I type out quotes into a Google Doc with some transitions and some analysis. Pieces of stuff. I’m looking for terms I’ll need to explicate. Connectionss to other passages or writers. Places where I can offer a concrete example of an abstract concept. I try to identify what I have to write *first*, what idea or term I need to understand and pin down in order to explicate the other terms/materials/examples I plan on analyzing in the paper.
Eventually I start thinking of an outline (what, in my writing classes, I call a road map: first this paper explains X, then it uses X to examine A, B, and C. Or first it reviews how X and Y have defined Z. Then it compares X and Y’s treatment of Z to M, stressing A and B). Whatever. I do some math and start guessing how many pages I can dedicate to each element in the outline. As a profession academic, I often work backwards a bit on this part, since virtually anything I write will be 8-10 pages (for a conference) or 20-30 pages (for an article).
However we approach pre-writing, I think we can think of it as developing “a sketch” of what our work will look like. It is an exercise in planning organization, mapping ideas. It is also, at least for me, an exercise in space management, making sure I can fit what is needed in the area with which I have to work. I think you can see where this is going.
When I used to design websites, I would always begin with a mock-up: a hand-drawn sketch of site. That would become a mock-up, a Photoshop picture of what I wanted the site to look like. This would include some basic measurements and grid work. We’re going to use a similar, but more lo-fi, approach to developing a draft for the menu project: a hand-drawn map on a piece of paper. We’ll work on this Wednesday.
Working in InDesign
Things to cover:
- Layers
- Properties (and text styles)
- Image Placeholder
General Design Advice and Resources for Menu Design
- Here is a link to the restaurant menu mini-project folder. It contains the .indd template file from class and the copy for the restaurant menu.
- The top Google hit for Menu Design tips.
- A better article on menu design tips.
- Let’s look at some examples.
- If you are feeling adventurous, then you can design a typical three-fold menu for the project. I found a good tutorial for this.
Schedule / Homework
For Wednesday, I would like you to bring a copy of a printed menu to class. We’re going to look at menus for a bit and discuss layout for the upcoming project. Note: I have transformed Chapter 6 into an extra-credit assignment.
- 4.Friday: Typography, HW: Read WSINYE Chapter on Type (you do not have to read the section on logo design). HW: Adobe InDesign Classroom in a Book, start chapter 4 “Working with Objects” (90 minutes).
- 5.Monday: Intro IFS Assignment. Discuss Typography. Quick InDesign Assignment.
- 5.Wednesday: Work Day. Work on IFS Draft, InDesign Classroom in a Book 5 “Flowing Text”(45 minutes).
- 5.Friday: IFS Crit.
- 6.Monday: [Today] IFS Final. In Class: Introduce Menu Assignment. Homework: Complete IDCiaB 5. Grab a print menu to bring to Wednesday’s class.
- 6.Wednesday: In class: Looking at Menus; Sketching out Designs. HW: WSINYE Color. InDesign Classroom in a Book 7 “Typography” (60 minutes). By Friday’s class, finish The Adobe Classroom in a Book chapters on Working with Objects, Flowing Text, and Working with Typography.
- 6.Friday: Work Day. HW: WSINYE Mini-Art School
- 7.Monday: Work Day.
- 7.Wednesday: Menu draft crit. Menu reflection assignment.
- 7.Friday: Menu Final. Reward: a glorious weekend without homework. Unless you didn’t complete the reflection assignment or failed to complete the Classroom in a Book assignments.
