City Lit Pro: Adobe InDesign intensive
Time: 10:30 - 16:30
Location: KS - Keeley Street
This course is FREE if a) you live in London and your job is at risk of redundancy or b) you are either on Jobseekers' Allowance (JSA) or Employment & Support Allowance(ESA) or c) you receive other state benefits (including Universal Credit). For more information click here
This course takes place in the classroom, please follow this link to find out what we are doing to keep you safe: Staying COVID-19 secure at City Lit
This course has now started
Course Code: VK331
Duration: 3 sessions (over 3 weeks)
Please note: We offer a wide variety of financial support to make courses affordable. Just visit our online Help Center for more information on a range of topics including fees, online learning and FAQs.
What is the course about?
This course is intended for publishers, pre-press professionals, creative professionals and print professionals. The course will enable you to use InDesign to create single and multiple page documents, whether working as a company employee, a freelancer or producing your own personal projects. You will learn to use the essential tools in InDesign.
Through demonstrations and practical exercises, we will guide you through the workspace, working with text and graphics, creating simple vector-based graphics, and the basics of design. You will also learn how to apply consistency to your text through the use of paragraph and character styles. You will learn how to add colour, create tables and objects and package a professional folder to send to commercial printers. InDesign is part of Adobe Creative Cloud and works seamlessly with other Adobe software such as Photoshop and Illustrator.
What will we cover?
• Navigating the InDesign work environment
• Placing and managing images
• Adding and managing pages
• Working with Master pages
• Placing, inputting and formatting text
• Threading text frames
• Creating character and Paragraph Styles
• Wrapping text around objects
• Creating and managing colour
• Designing tables
• Integrating Photoshop and Illustrator
• Pre-flight and packaging documents
• Saving and exporting from InDesign.
What will I achieve?
By the end of this course you should be able to...
The course concentrates on building a document layout from scratch and explores layout and typographical controls, working with layers and creating multipage documents
On completion of the course you should be able to:
• Create, open and save an InDesign Document
• Navigate through Adobe InDesign workspace confidently
• Layout text and images in a document
• Format and style short and long texts
• Create swatches and apply colour
• Create tables
• Identify and find and replace errors in document
• Integrate with Photoshop and Illustrator
• Confidently hand-off projects to colleagues or external printers
• Save and export files in Indd, Idml and pdf formats.
What level is the course and do I need any particular skills?
No prior knowledge of InDesign is required, but an understanding of either Photoshop or Illustrator is desirable. You should be a competent computer user and know how to: launch an application, use drop-down menus, create, copy, save and retrieve files and be able to work confidently with the keyboard and mouse.
You should be able to follow simple written and verbal instructions. You should be able to use numbers and be able to do simple measurements and calculations.
How will I be taught, and will there be any work outside the class?
You will be taught using a range of techniques including workshops, short lectures, demonstrations, and by completing practical exercises on Computer. Computers are provided for each student with all the necessary software installed. Student preparation and homework outside class times is strongly encouraged. Notes will be provided.
Are there any other costs? Is there anything I need to bring?
A pen and paper to take notes. Step-by-step instruction, with demonstrations where appropriate, will help you grasp the concepts. You may also find that having a couple of sheets of A4 paper and a ruler to hand would also be useful. Handouts for this course will be provided electronically in Google Classroom and are best viewed in Adobe Acrobat Reader (or, if you have full Creative Cloud, Acrobat DC) so may want to have Acrobat on your personal home computer. You might want to bring a USB so save your own work.
Unfortunately, due to the range of hardware and software used by students at home, the College is unable to provide advice on installation issues.
When I've finished, what course can I do next?
You can develop your skills further in Designing for magazines and books with Adobe InDesign: stage 1, Designing for magazines and books with Adobe InDesign: stage 2, Adobe InDesign: stage 2.
Gita’s practice as a graphic designer and illustrator spans many years and disciplines within the field. She has worked in print and screen-based media across major broadcast, corporate, NGO, publishing and state sectors. Gita went digital in 1991. She brings her experience and knowledge to teaching Adobe Creative Cloud apps for design and Illustration in different departments within Visual Arts at City Lit. She started teaching evening and weekend courses at City Lit in 2006, having previously provided bespoke workplace-training for companies and organisations. Her classes are regarded as fun, friendly and challenging, with extensive resources for both in-and-after course study.
Please note: We reserve the right to change our tutors from those advertised. This happens rarely, but if it does, we are unable to refund fees due to this. Our tutors may have different teaching styles; however we guarantee a consistent quality of teaching in all our courses.
