Articles Index

When to Use Spot Colors or Process Colors or Both

The more colors of ink you use, the higher the printing costs usually. Find out when a few spot colors will work and when you need to go with 4-color process colors or a mix of spot and process colors.

Binding

Learn about spiral, saddle-stitching, perfect bound and other binding methods for your books, booklets, and multi-page projects. Discover which binding methods are least expensive, which type of binding allows books to lie flat when open, and other options.

Why and How to Use Templates Effectively

In desktop publishing, templates are pre-designed documents that we can use to create business cards, brochures, greeting cards, or other desktop documents. Learn how to use templates more effectively and find free templates for desktop publishing.

Desktop Publishing in the 21st Century

Desktop publishing is a term coined in the 1980s after the development of a specific type of software for creating materials for print; however, today desktop publishing encompasses more than just print communication and utilizes many different types of software. The basic goal of desktop publishing remains the same: a process for creating materials for visual communication.

Use One Space Between Sentences

Should you put one space or two spaces after a period? The debate over how much space to put between sentences (whether they end with a period or other punctuation) may seem petty, but often it's the little details that make or break a design.

Calibrate Your Digital Camera

Calibrating monitors, printers, and scanners helps yield more consistent color between all these devices. However, it may never have occurred to you that calibrating your digital camera can also produce more reliable color matching.

Calibrate Your Scanner

If you have trouble getting scans that look right, the problem may not be with your scanning technique. Calibrating your scanner can go a long way toward insuring that what you scan and what you see on-screen and what you print are all the same. Scanner calibration goes along with monitor and printer calibration to help get the best color match possible from three very different devices.

Calibrate Your Printer

Calibrating your printer insures that what you print is consistent with what you see on-screen. The two go hand in hand.

Calibrate Your Monitor

The way images look on screen is different from the way they look in print. Calibrating your monitor provides a screen display that simulates what you would see on paper.

Print Iron On Transfers for T-Shirts

Design and print iron on transfers for t-shirts and other wearable items. You can create your own custom clothing with absolutely no sewing skills. Decorate t-shirts, canvas bags, and other fabric items with iron on transfers that you design yourself and print from your desktop. Get tips, learn about t-shirt design software, get free iron on transfers graphics.

Earth-Friendly Design

Make every day Earth Day. Everyday you can practice earth-friendly desktop publishing. Here are a few easy tips, especially for paper recycling and paper conservation, plus links for the environmentally-savvy designer.

Using Clip Art on Resale Products

Can you use the clip art you bought on resale products such as t-shirts, greeting cards, or coffee mugs you plan to sell for profit? Sometimes yes, sometimes no. You'll need to find out what the company allows. Learn to read the licensing agreements for clip art usage including use of the clip art on resale products.

Color Meanings

Color meanings are powerful tools. Color is more than a combination of red, green, and blue or cyan, magenta, yellow, and black. It is non-verbal communication. Discover color meanings, what colors work together, and browse some color palettes in this exploration of color symbolism or color meanings.

Graphic Design and Graphic Arts, The Graphical Expression of... Whose Message?

Elisabetta Bruno talks about how the source of the message differentiates graphic design from graphic arts. They are both forms of visual communication but with different goals and origins.

Using Your Digital Camera as a Scanner

There was a time when having a scanner, especially a high-resolution flatbed scanner, was an essential piece of office equipment for desktop publishing and graphic design. Today, digital cameras can often take the place of a scanner.

Harry Potter Fonts

Locate free fonts with the look of Harry Potter including lightning bolt letters. Download two of the Harry Potter fonts here - Harry P and Lumos - and find links to many more versions and styles of these magical free fonts.

Common Keyboard Shortcuts for Desktop Publishing

Speed up your work by using common keyboard shortcuts.

12 Parts of a Newsletter

Your newsletter design doesn't have to have all these parts but most newsletters will have at least three of these elements of newsletter design, and usually many more. Find out what these parts are and get tips on newsletter design for each part of your periodical.

Parts of an Envelope

The envelope you make or choose for your desktop publishing projects is just as important as what goes in it. The size of the piece, type of mailing, budget, and whether or not you'll be using automated equipment to insert the envelope contents affects the style of envelope you can use.

Make a Calendar

Year-round Calendar Project Ideas for making your own calendars for yourself, as gifts, for customers. Create and personalize calendars of all kinds.

Open Source Desktop Publishing

Dan Fink shares with About.com Desktop Publishing readers his first hand experience with using open-source software for desktop publishing.

Best Graphics File Formats for Desktop Publishing

Graphics come in many flavors but not all formats are suitable for all purposes. Find out when and why to use EPS, TIFF, JPEG, GIF and other common graphics file formats in desktop publishing.

Adobe Creative Suite

This table shows which of 16 different Adobe products are including in each of the six versions of the most current Adobe Creative Suite (currently CS4). InDesign is in only 3 version. Premiere Pro comes in only two. Find out which version dies not include Photoshop.

Graphic Design Portfolio Projects

Build a graphic design portfolio when you don't have real world experience by doing these graphic design portfolio projects and makeovers on your own. Use them to strut your stuff and show off your design skills to potential employers or clients.

Setting an Hourly Rate for Desktop Publishing

Although some consider it the most difficult aspect of starting a desktop publishing business, the basic process involved in setting prices and estimating jobs is fairly straightforward. First, you need to set an hourly rate.