Top 4 Steps to Perfect Publications for Intermediate Designers

1. Get a Grid

Put your design elements in their place. If you aren't using design wizards or pre-designed templates you may find yourself looking at a blank page wondering "where do I start?" Start with a grid. A grid can organize your content and give you page to page consistency.

2. Punctuate Like a Pro

Go beyond matching serif and sans serif faces by finetuning your typography. Use "curly" quotes, adjust your line spacing, kern your headlines, and add those other subtle touches that take your documents beyond the default settings in your software.

3. Can the Canned Clip Art

Clip art and stock photos are an efficient means of adding graphics to your documents. But when you start seeing the same illustrations popping up over and over and over again you begin to suspect that some computer scientist is out there indiscriminately cloning GIFs and TIFs. Sidestep the problem by customizing canned clip art to suit your needs.

4. Pick PostScript

Some people are afraid of using PostScript files -- digital files created for printing to a PostScript printer or imagesetter. Perhaps you've heard horror stories about the problems sometimes associated with these files? Get over it! PostScript files have many advantages over other types of electronic files and they don't have to be a hassle. Learn why, when, and how to use them. Even if you use PDF (or especially if), PostScript knowledge is invaluable.