Many designers and photographers own the entire suite of Adobe’s creative products, but they manage to learn only one or two of the applications really well. If Adobe InDesign CS5.5 is the one app in the suite that makes you feel like you’re entering a foreign country where you don’t speak the language, Robin Williams provides the perfect travel guide and translator in this new edition to the best-selling Non-Designer’s series. This fun, straight-forward, four-color book includes many individual exercises designed specifically to teach InDesign CS5.5 to beginners in such a way that you can jump in at any point to learn a specific tool or technique. Along the way, Robin offers design tips for making your work communicate appropriately and beautifully. Whether you need to create your own marketing materials for a small business or organization, or you want your student or business papers to be perceived as more professional, or you want to become more proficient with the design tools you already use, this book is the fastest and most efficient path to mastering basic tasks InDesign. In this non-designer’s guide to InDesign CS5.5, you’ll learn: How to create basic design projects, such as flyers, business cards, letterhead, ads, brochures, CD covers, and much more How to add images to your pages and crop, rotate, resize, and add effects to those images How to use InDesign’s typographic tools to make your work look professional How to use style sheets so every job is easier to create and work with How to use tabs and indents with confidence and predictability How to create nice-looking tables to effectively organize data And, of course, the basics of working in InDesign with layers, panels, tools, etc.

This guide provides a simple, step-by-step process to better design. Techniques promise immediate results that forever change a reader's design eye. It contains dozens of examples.

Annotation Many designers and photographers own the entire suite of Adobe creative products, but they manage to learn only one or two of the applications really well. This volume includes many individual exercises designed specifically to teach the tools and features in Illustrator that designers (as opposed to illustrators) need to use.

Many designers and photographers own the entire suite of Adobe creative products, but they manage to learn only one or two of the applications really well. This new addition to the popular Non-Designer’s books from best-selling authors Robin Williams and John Tollett uses a series of individual exercises to teach image-editing tasks in Adobe Photoshop CS5.5 specifically to designers, who need to enhance their photos for use in brochures, advertising, Flickr, Facebook, websites, and so on. In this fun, full-color, straight-forward guide to Photoshop CS5.5, you’ll learn: Basic photo editing, such as how to smooth out wrinkles, remove blemishes, lose a little weight, clean up dust and scratches, brighten and sharpen the image, delete people, remove or add space in the middle of a photo, and more How to further manipulate and enhance images with filters and effects How to draw and paint with customized brushes, and how to colorize a black-and-white image All about layers and how to take advantage of them How and when to use paths, layer masks, and clipping masks to increase your editing capabilities How to merge several photos into one panorama, use the Puppet Warp feature, remove lens distortion, and much more Whether you need to improve or edit your photos for your graphic design work or to upload to your Flickr or Facebook account, this book is the easiest path to mastering basic tasks in Photoshop.

Do you want to make your printed pages look better, but don't know how ? ...

Book Design Made Simple gives DIY authors, small presses, and graphic designers--novices and experts alike--the power to design their own books. It's the first comprehensive book of its kind, explaining every step from installing Adobe(R) InDesign(R) right through to sending the files to press. For those who want to design their own books but have little idea how to proceed, Book Design Made Simple is a semester of book design instruction plus a publishing class rolled into one. Let two experts guide you through the process with easy step-by-step instructions, resulting in a professional-looking top-quality book

Is this book for programmers? Written specifically for graphic designers and production artists already comfortable working with Adobe InDesign, this book teaches you how to automate publishing without learning a lot of scary code. XML simplifies the process of moving content in and out of your layouts and can speed up any print or Web assignment. Why should I care about XML? If you’re managing data-intensive layout projects, and you want to keep that data consistent, accurate, and up-to-date, then incorporating XML can help. You can also use XML to automate processes like importing text and large numbers of graphics into a layout, or repurposing content from one application to another. Do I need additional plug-ins or special software? You need only the powerful features built into InDesign CS2, CS3 or CS4 to use this book. How will I learn XML? This guide includes nine easy-to-follow projects with downloadable support files. With these hands-on tutorials, you will learn XML in context. By the final project, XML will no longer be a mystery, but a powerful tool you can use to support your company or clients. These real-world projects will teach you: l Business cards: Create a structured layout in InDesign and then import XML. Format text automatically and flow the text into multiple examples. l Product catalog: Learn how to import XML data into a structured layout using nested styles and cloned text. l Direct mail and variable data printing: Use XML and InDesign to create sophisticated direct mail pieces without costly plug-ins or third-party software. l Magazine and newspaper: Build and export magazine-style publications for online distribution. l Web: Transform XML into XHTML to incorporate directly into your Web pages, or use Cascading Style Sheets to instantly format your exported XML.