Tonight's lecture

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Tonight's assignment

JMC59 – Magazine Advertisement Assignment

Total Point Value: 30 points

Date Due: By start of class October 26, 2010

BACKGROUND:

The world is saturated with advertising messages, making your task as a designer difficult. Your ads must cut through the clichéd clutter and demand the attention of the reader. And, once you have their attention, you have to work fast, because they are already turning the page. Like the poster assignment, your ad must grab communicate the message quickly and effectively, and be memorable.

Take advantage of your experience as a consumer – what attracts your attention? What makes you stop to read? What doesn’t grab you? Think about your target audience – do their likes/dislikes differ from yours? How? Combine your insight with the concepts we discussed in class to layout an ad for Drake University.

ASSIGNMENT:

Drake University has come to you with copy and a bunch of images, asking for a print ad.

Create a magazine ad using InDesign and Photoshop:

• In the 59Langager folder, in the Assignments folder, you will find a folder named “AdAssets.” Review the contents.

• Use the information in “Copy.doc” for the headline, subhead, body copy and tagline

• Choose at least one image in the “Images” folder to include in your layout.

• Copy “Copy.doc” and your chosen image(s) to your desktop, documents folder or flash drive.

• Your ad should be 8 inches by 10 inches in a vertical orientation.

• As you create the page, set the "Bleed" to 1p6 (for Top, Bottom, Left and Right) -- if you don't see the option for bleed as you create the document click "More options" -- to change the Bleed later go to File -> Document Setup...

• Use one applied color, in addition to either black or white (the color can be added to the text or an object of your creation)

• Incorporate the elements of graphic design we have covered to this point

• Use Photoshop (or Camera RAW as we did before) to adjust the images for contrast, color balance, etc. Save as the highest quality JPEG when done.

• Also, not all photos are high enough quality to make them full-page size. However, if an image is pixelated, try going to View -> Display Performance -> High Quality Display

Your finished design should be exported as a high quality PDF file (File -> Adobe PDF Presets -> High Quality PDF), named as “YourlastnameAd” and placed in the 59Langager Turn-In folder on the server. You can access this server from Meredith 104, 124B, or 125.

Things that bug designers.

Check out this thread on things that bug designers.

Mid-term study guide

The mid-term will cover assigned readings from Williams and Harrower, lecture, and NewsU.org material.

Questions from the exam may include (but are not limited to) the following topics:

Photography
Megapixels
Depth of field
Aperture
Shutter
Fill flash
Resolution
3 main types of photojournalism photos (informational, passive, active)
Cropping
Portrait mode

Color
RGB color
CMYK color
Cool colors vs warm colors (which recedes into the background?)
Spot color vs Process

Design
C.R.A.P.
Balance
Hierarchy
Space
Alignment and readability
Grids

Typography
Types of display type
Maximum number of font families in a design?
Kerning
Leading
Tracking
Golden rule of column width (39 characters)
Widow
Ascender
Baseline
Descender
Serifs
X-Height
Factors affecting readability
Points, picas, inches

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