A Quick Course in Desktop Publishing

My daughter, Lyla, used to be a bit unsure about exactly what desktop publishing and graphic design is all about. But since she's started helping to work on this site and has been reading a lot of my articles and tutorials, she's beginning to realize just how much information she's soaking up, even if she doesn't understand it all at first.

She finds herself critiquing junk mail, has helped a friend create more interesting layouts for a scrapbook, and most recently she recognized not only how bad a presentation at the local high school was but why the visuals were so ineffective. Before, she would have called it boring without really understanding what was wrong. Now she's starting to recognize why alignment or font choices or white space make a page interesting or ugly.

At least one reason amateur design looks so, well, amateurish is that the person creating the piece has no knowledge about what looks good or bad, what works or doesn't work visually. While it can take years of experience to understand all the nuances and master the perfect page layout, it only takes a little bit of study to grasp some of the basics -- and vastly improve those amateur designs. While reading a few articles won't make you a professional designer, it can help you put a little more thought and good design into even simple projects like greeting cards, scrapbooks, letterhead, or a club newsletter.

Are you looking for a few lessons, not a whole new career? Here's a quick course -- think of it as an informal self-study program -- to help you learn what's right and avoid what's wrong:

• Before You Start a Project: Learn about the Principles of Design and these 7 Page Composition Tips.

• While You Design a Piece: Follow these 4 Steps to Perfect Publications for Non-Designers and examine your work for these Design Disasters to Avoid.

• If You Want To Get It Commercially Printed: Desktop printing may be all you ever use but just in case, get an overview of some Common Printing Methods and familiarize yourself with Sending Files Out For Printing.