Today’s Plan:
- Zine Project
- Setting Up Your Zine in InDesign
- Wednesday: Porting Your Book Cover to InDesign
- Friday: Bring a Print Copy of Your Zine to Class
Zine Project Expectations
Here is a refresh of the expectations I shared last week.
- This will be an individual project
- We will review projects in class on Friday the 13th
- This will be a black and white design with no bleeds
- This will be designed for 8 1/2″ by 11″ paper
- This project has to include space for an Editor’s Introduction and organization (one page, text below)
- This project will be exactly 22-24 pages long
- This project needs to have at least one experimental page
- You will print and bind one copy of your design
New thing:
- Masthead: this can be positioned creatively; we have the name of the organization, names of editors (Zoe Bentham, Patrick Trujillo, ?), contributors, designer
Dummy text for the Editor’s Introduction:
Bacon ipsum dolor amet corned beef swine bresaola short ribs beef ribs. Short ribs prosciutto jowl, beef turkey ribeye meatball pork kielbasa brisket leberkas filet mignon cow tongue. Frankfurter capicola buffalo bacon sirloin, pork chop chicken pork loin prosciutto corned beef swine t-bone ribeye. Short loin pork beef ribs ham. Alcatra jerky boudin ham chuck. Pork cupim rump pork loin bacon landjaeger. Ham jerky tail sausage chislic cow pork belly ribeye pastrami tri-tip.
Bacon ipsum dolor amet chislic pork belly jowl tongue pig, drumstick rump turkey pork chop. Flank kielbasa cow pig, jowl rump pork belly boudin corned beef chicken ground round sausage pork chop. Filet mignon rump cow tail. Pork loin jowl pancetta short ribs ball tip tri-tip. Flank pork kielbasa picanha tenderloin drumstick short loin doner pork chop.
Here is a link to the project copy.
Setting Up Your Zine in InDesign
We are going to create a Booklet in InDesign. That link provides instructions for setting up our Layout View. It also contains a link for hot to print your document.
At some point, you’ll need to add page numbers to your footer (hint, it is like adding a special character). REMEMBER TO INSERT THE PAGE NUMBER IN YOUR MASTER, not on a page in the layout.
Homework / Rest of Week
On Wednesday I will show you how to import your Photoshop cover into InDesign. This should not be hard. The rest of class will be dedicated to completing your project.
On Friday, we will share and evaluate projects. It is important that you reflect on how other designers have approached this project. My plan is to have everyone bring a print copy of their design to class. We will take 90 seconds to evaluate each design. That should leave us about 20 minutes to commend designers.
A Note on Feedback and Grading
Those who know me from other contexts probably know that I am not a big fan of grading–of putting a numeric value on the quality of your work. There’s quite a bit of research on the pernicious side effects of grading–how it actually can impede learning. If we want to promote learning, then we should develop instructional environments in which feedback (which is an essential part of learning) is distanced from evaluation.
What does this mean for this project? It means that scoring the project is based on the following:
- Does this project have a cover? 4 points
- Does this project have a masthead? 2 points
- Is this project 22-24 pages long? 2 points
- Does this project have at least one “cool” page? 2 points
- Does this project include at least 3 images in the body copy? 2 points
- Did you bring a print copy to class on Friday, March 13th? 4 points
- Did you turn in the .indd file to Canvas?
- Do I think you spent 3 or more hours on this project (not counting the cover)? Does it feel like you cared about this project? 4 points
As you can see, if you just do all the things you are ensured a B- (but realistically a B or B+ since it is unlikely I would award you a 0 on the last criteria unless you really turn in a piece of garbage.
But I also want to emphasize that learning is tied to the formal reflection upon practice (so sayeth John Dewey). That is–it isn’t enough to practice (although all practice, implicitly at least, likely spurs growth). We learn most when we actively reflect on our practice. That’s where my feedback comes in. When I craft feedback on these projects, I will be considering:
- Typography: choice of font. Does it develop a personality?
- Layout: Line length. Font size. Alignment of page elements. Etc.
- Images: Contrast. Placement. This is meant to be a black and white, no bleed design to save money (hypothetically for our organization, realistically for you, since you have to print and bind these things)
- Speaking of binding
