In How to Design Attention-grabbing Brochures, Catalogs, Ads, Newsletters and Reports, you'll learn...
- Eye flow—keeping readers riveted to the page
- Graphic secrets for getting skimmers to look, stop and read
- Ways to add interest with illustrations, clip art and other graphic elements
- How to create reader-friendly charts
- And much more!
Innovative design techniques, layouts that grab your readers’ attention, enhancing your message with design tricks the pros use … you’ll find these and so many more elements of successful design right here in our workshop. Don’t let boring design and “designer’s block” stop you from producing top-quality materials ever again. The tools you need to inject excitement into every document you design is only one day of training away.
WORKSHOP AGENDA
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Preparation: The key that separates design rookies from pros+
- 10 key questions to ask before plunging into a design
- What’s your goal? To sell, inform, persuade, educate?
- Extra planning steps that will pay off big-time later
- The hallmarks of a great design
- Discover who your audience is and what it needs from you
- Designing for a diverse audience—the rules are different
- First impressions: How to make a splash in 5 seconds or less
- How to tell the difference between good—and bad—design (it may not be as obvious as you think)
- Holding your readers’ attention—you’ve got the power!
- Words alone are not enough—how to communicate graphically to ensure they “get it”
The ABC’s of desktop design—creating a show-stopping document has never been so easy+
- The ground rules for achieving a consistent look across all your company’s publications
- And the winner is … examples of winning design in ads, brochures, newsletters and more
- Eye flow: What you need to know to keep readers riveted to the page
- Harmony: To achieve it, weed out elements in your design that don’t fit
- Clever ways to handle balance and proportion—and create visual energy
- Graphic tricks for getting skimmers to look, stop and read
- Too much text? How to lighten things up with boxes, sidebars and callouts
- Creating and using thumbnails—a designer’s best friend
- How to design headlines and subheads that don’t just sit there but reel readers in
- White space: The most powerful—and underused—graphic tool of all
- The desktop designer’s “Hall of Shame”—avoid these disasters at all costs!
Typography secrets and solutions—what works, what doesn’t—and why+
- Sans serif or serif type? Where many designers go wrong
- When all caps are OK and when upper and lowercase is better
- Selecting type with an attitude to produce the effect you want
- Reverse type: The benefits and drawbacks
- Transfer printer fonts legally
- A rule of thumb when mixing point sizes on a page
- Selecting type size: Make-it-or-break-it factors
- Matching a typeface to the image you want: Advice you shouldn’t be without
- Extreme design! How to create stop-’em-dead layouts using only type
- Getting the best results when mixing typefaces
- Sloppy punctuation mistakes that spoil a professional image
- The incredible power of captions—when placed correctly
- Cool tips for using bold, italics and underlines
- Understand all that’s involved in proper leading, tracking and kerning
- Justified, unjustified, centered? Factors to consider
Create great-looking, special documents you can brag about+
- The 5 commandments for designing functional and eye-pleasing newsletters
- How to double the readability and visual power of catalogs
- Tips for designing professional-looking brochures that get the results you want
- Liven up dull presentation materials in a matter of minutes
- Are you winging it when determining the size of ads, brochures and newsletters?
- Eliminate monotony in proposals and reports—and wake up readers
- Designing ads with punch and sizzle
- A crash course on designing Web page layouts
- Oops! Mistakes you don’t want to make when positioning corporate logos
Maximizing color—your ultimate communication tool+
- Tapping into the unbelievable psychological power of color
- Get luscious color—on a budget
- How and where to add color for the greatest impact
- Spot color, four color, duotone? Consider this before deciding
- Combining colors effectively—mystery solved!
- Avoid embarrassing abuses of caps, dingbats and wingdings
- Achieving trouble-free backgrounds and screens
- Inside desktop publishing’s toolbox of special effects
- Addicted to graphics? Know when you’ve gone overboard
Enter the world of graphics and imagine the possibilities+
- The unwritten rules for handling clip art
- Getting more oomph from illustrations and other graphic elements
- Sizing and positioning graphic elements—what you don’t know could hurt you
- Why some chart formats are better than others
- Recognizing when you’re better off without the graphics
- What makes a good photograph—and why
- How to create graphs that are reader-friendly—and look good
The building blocks of layouts that get noticed+
- A helpful checklist to be sure you haven’t overlooked an essential page ingredient
- 20 design mistakes beginners, unfortunately, often make
- 3 qualities of every effective layout
- How to magically pull type, text, color and graphics together to create an unforgettable mood
- How to tap into an endless supply of creative ideas
- How to know when your own laser printer—or a service bureau—is your best bet
- Issues to clear up with printers and service bureaus early on—before you reach crisis level
- Where to turn when the printed piece is NOT what you expected—never go in without “Plan B”!
Push your design performance with technologies within fingertip reach+
- Put the power of digital cameras to work for you
- Web layout tools for beginners
- Are they real or computer-generated?
Creating eye-stopping images with Illustrator®, Photoshop® and other image-manipulation software+
- Mac® or PC for layout? What the debate is really all about
- What you can do with Quark®, PageMaker® and other layout packages
- Scanner tips: Achieving quality images is as easy as 1-2-3
- Getting your money’s worth from CD-ROMs, tape backup units and peripherals
- The latest trends in design software and technologies … tools for making your job easier
