November 2013 Xara Xone Tute: Page Design Part One

[Barbara B]

Page Design Part One

November 2013 (OK, yeah, it is December, but the video is really, really good. and <sheepish grin>)




This month Gary has listened to the TG forum and has created the first of a series of videos on page design. If you want a page that prints clear to the border, how do you set up bleed? And what’s this “Grid System” Art Directors talk about. This is your introduction to making your drawings complete a larger picture: after you’ve created a scene, frame it with text, and make the audience look at your composition until they’ve seen your full talent. Come along and get started with The Big Picture!

Let's see how you use Xara and grids to create inspired layouts.

[Gare]

This was an entirely different approach to tg's traditional tutorials: it was sort of a seminar rather than a "click here, go there to make a ball shape".

I have heard more than once from our membership some of the frustration in realizing what's in their head using Xara, and it's one's approach, and not Xara, that is responsible for the frustration.

Me, I was fortunate enough to go to formal art school in my youth, and I was taught structure, and how to build a rough foundation to embellish, and there are a lot of tools you need to create and a lot of rules you need to understand, so Episode One which I hope you'll soak in, is the first of several episodes next year that cover art basics instead of Xara's tools and what they can do. A lot of people have a much better grasp of what a tool can do, but not how to approach an idea to make it an outstanding graphic.

And not to worry...the Page Design episodes will be scattered throughout the next year (and perhaps beyond), with plenty of goal-oriented traditional tutorials in-between.

I'm here to teach, and I'm here to listen. Watch the video, ask questions here, and let's see if together we can't create something you'll be thrilled to have thought of.




My Best,

Gary

[angelize]

This is a great tutorial Gary. Both the grid and the explanations of bleed and safety areas were very helpful. I will look forward to more of these.

[mwenz]

Hi Ya, Gary—nice tut.

Because I'm often not one for following along well (and only play well with others once in a while), I attempted to recreate a little tutorial I borrowed from an on-line source for InDesign...that I recreated in QXP and PagePlus for a couple different groups of people. The ID tut was on baseline grids. While XDP does not support baseline grids, neither does PagePlus in the latest version (X7).

However, one can simulate a baseline grid in PP using an exact leading amount specified in points (and with extra math, in percents). My attempt failed in XDP. So I'll file a bug report.

Which means I'll force myself to play along insofar as the Xara Tut goes. I really enjoyed the subject of this month's XaraXone tutorial and look forward to more in the series. Again, thanks for getting to this topic.

[Gare]

@Mike—

I backed off the "Uber Tech" in this month's video because 1.) it's not in the Top Ten popular page design topics I've seen requests for, and 2.) I don't do commercial printing every day and that's why I put the caveat in the video that the pressman should have the final word on specs.

I thought as far as designing a page goes, the Grid System is so easy yet so critical to page legibility, that it's often overlooked as dumb or childish.

Next year, I'll sneak in 2, 3, and 4, and possibly a 5, concerning proper and professional (and eye-catching) typography rules, treatments and Larry probably wants info on storybook drop-caps (). We need to talk about gutters, considering the ubiquitous and sucky "perfect binding" when it comes to calculating gutter width versus the better stapling and the much better saddle stitching. And page numbering above the baseline and inside safety. There's a lot of stuff like bullets and dot leaders new to version 9 of Designer Pro and Page & Layout Designer, and I'd like to show you folks how to design a menu (as I did in the Official Guide).


Once we have a few rules in place in everyone's minds, I'll devote an episode to breaking the rules and coming up with something wondrous. I had a teacher back in school who insisted that headlines should be sans serif and body copy serif. So ten years later he redesigns the late, great Newsweek magazine and wouldn't you know his headlines are serif and body copy sans!

So it's important to learn the distinction between unconventional and innovative and actual design heresy.

To come, promise!

-g

[mwenz]

What a good year for tuts 2014 is looking like! Not to say 2013 isn't/wasn't...But I really like this "topic" list above.

This is how I look at this subject. Before I draw that ball (or Christmas ornament), illustration/chart or what have you, I have to have concepts of where they are going, how is it going to meld with the other elements on the page, how will the page be structured, etc. No sense in drawing an ubber complex chart if I am only going to have 1 or 2 column inches to display the info.

Anyway, looking forward to it.

I got carried away on the word "grid" and applied it to a peeve I have. I did just discover what I thought was a bug only appears to apply to RTF pasted text. I'll have to investigate before I call bug again...

Back to worky.

Mike

[Boy]

I like your seminar and am looking forward to the next ones.

[Gare]

There are plenty of people who are more experienced in the definitions, functions, and intricacies of Xara than I. Also, there are a passel of technicians who wield Xara as though it's a camera, and they succeed!

So it's real simple: I try to approach making Xara easier and more fruitful by the "holistic" method. Not spiritual or spacey, as the term has become characterized as, but rather the original "Holism is characterized (but not defined) by comprehension of the parts of something as intimately interconnected and explicable only by reference to the whole." —Many online dictionaries

Draw some concentric circles. The inner-most one are Xara's tools; working outwards, there's Xara, outside of that is your OS, and then your computer, and the outermost we'll want to declare is Artwork.

I'm just stepping outside of the concentric circles to try to show the larger picture. And that's why I got lost in the page design theme this month and why it was so late to the forum.

People who want to tune in want results. And to do this, the learning needs to happen in stages.

I'm far less boring in person, honest!

-g

[Boy]

I'm far less boring in person, honest!

"Boring" is one of the last words I would use to describe you.

[angelize]

We use a grid for laying out Good Morning Sunshine. Our layout is a standard US letter size page (8.5 by 11 in) double page spread. each page is laid out using a 3x3 grid we have no bleed but we do have a page margin, gutters and column breaks. (some of this Gary hasn't covered yet) We use the grid to layout our columns and align the ads. For the pages I have a template with guidelines set up, but often when doing the ads the grid is in my head

Here is a grid based layout I did this summer for one of our advertisers.