JRN 302: Introduction to Graphics and Visual Communication - Alignment, PS Demos Thursday, 2/4/16

Class Objectives Lecture Alignment PS Demos: Warnings for your Logo Assignment Homework assignments Logo assignment due by the end of class, on Thursday,

Alignment and Novice Designers New designers tend to put text and graphics on the page wherever there happens to be space, often without regard to any other items on the page. Goal of alignment is to NOT place anything arbitrarily on the page Every item should have a visual connection with something else on the page Alignment helps you organize and unify a design. Best practices- work with guides!

Alignment Can do with forced visual alignment Such as with text Or with invisible alignment The viewer fills in the alignment on his/her own… enough design elements present that allow this

Edge Alignment Line up edges Any object with flat edge(s) can be used for edge alignment. Rectangles are especially well suited for this since they have four flat edges and 90 degree angles to align But can line up other edges and angles as well

Center Alignment Pick an axis and align shapes to it Vertical alignment works with symmetry Remember, though… for your logo, avoid designing a non-connected center aligned text with center aligned symbol on top xxxxxxxxxxxxx

Alignment in PS Work with guides (created from rulers) <View <Rulers Can’t pull diagonal guides – can create a layer with lines on it… line tool is behind shape tool (pay attention to fill and stroke). Or with alignment buttons (from PS tutorial 3) “Box out” your logo Everything lines up to something else So do not just put a symbol and text and have them not aligned to each other or integrated in some way

Alignment and your logo The most important design principal for your logo is alignment Pull guides (from rulers) in Photoshop and line elements up with them You determine how and where to align symbol/shape with text In PS, pull guides and then go to <Show <Hide Guides

PS Demo: warning about distortions When draw or transform something, it is critical you do not SKEW/DISTORT anything Hold that shift button down!! NEVER adjust by moving middle handle!! If, in you logo design, something is skewed, points will be deducted  So circles should be circles, people should be normal looking Repeat: Never, never, never skew or distort a logo or anything in a logo that shouldn’t be distorted

PS Demo: warning about pixelations You CAN safely increase text when it is saved as a text layer You CAN safely increase a shape when it is saved as a text layer For everything else: do NOT <Edit <Transform <Scale UP! Just to make sure of everything, look at your file at 100% in PS and make sure nothing is pixelated! Repeat: Never, never increase/scale up a raster layer.

PS Demo: warning about what to drop You need to drop the three digital files (see instruction sheet) from the 1 design IF you have downloaded and installed a font onto your computer (any computer), and IF you have that font saved as a font layer on your PSD file = you HAVE to drop the font file as well Work around is to rasterize your font layer (but do NOT increase it after you do this!)