Graphic Design & Desktop Publishing

Course overview

Course outline

1. 1Day 1: Fundamentals of Graphic Design

   • Introduction to graphic design and its purpose
   • Colour theory and colour psychology
   • Resolution principles and image quality
   • Vector and postscript concepts in design workflows
   • Essential hardware components for graphic design
   • Popular software: Adobe Photoshop, Illustrator, InDesign
   • Setting up a professional design workplace
   • Ergonomics, colour calibration, and file management
   • Exercise: Analyse professional posters for colour, typography, and composition
2. 2Day 2: Digital Imaging and Printing Production

   • Digital imaging tools and raw materials
   • Graphic tablets, scanners, and digital cameras
   • Scanning and image capturing principles
   • Scanning resolution, file formats, and colour sampling
   • Photography basics and royalty-free image usage
   • Composition, lighting, licensing, and copyright rules
   • Prepress processes and print file preparation
   • Printer management and digital printing techniques
   • Embedding and linking graphics in print-ready files
   • Working with PDFs for print production
   • Case study: Evaluate a faulty print sample
3. 3Day 3: Digital Illustration

   • Comparing vector and bitmap graphics
   • Digital illustration tools and techniques
   • Bézier curves, selections, masks, rasterising, clipping paths
   • Object management and layer organization
   • Grouping, locking, aligning, arranging, transforming
   • Brushes, filters, gradients, and effects
   • Photo manipulation and montage techniques
   • Producing realistic illustration effects
   • Combining pixels with paths, perspective, and shadows
   • Typography and text integration into illustrations
   • Exercise: Create a mixed-media illustration
4. 4Day 4: Design and Typography for Desktop Publishing

   • Design principles and reader perception
   • Typographic rules for print publications
   • Legibility, spacing, type families, and font pairing
   • Popular typefaces and font selection for branding
   • Layout components in desktop publishing
   • Grids, margins, master pages, paragraphs, and text styles
   • Integrating graphics with text and copy-fitting
   • Managing multi-page layouts and preparing files for print
   • Activity: Redesign a three-page brochure
5. 5Day 5: Web and Marketing Design Principles

   • Introduction to web design concepts and principles
   • Visual hierarchy, responsiveness, and user experience
   • Web graphics and internet image formats
   • Webpage layout and structural elements
   • HTML structure and CSS formatting basics
   • Common web design software
   • Best practices for navigation and hyperlinks
   • Connection between design and marketing
   • Visual consistency across channels
   • Case study: Review a company website for usability and branding improvements