May, 2003 | CreativePro Network

Layout Basics: Using Boxes and Sidebars Effectively

When trying to think of an interesting design element that you can use to enhance your layout, a box probably isn’t your first thought. Aside from the fact that PageMaker’s drawing tools are somewhat limited, boxes aren’t really considered “art.” However, boxes, also referred to as solid bars and sidebars, are useful for highlighting certain […]

Layout Basics: Using Grids for Consistency

To create professional-level work with PageMaker, you need to do more than just aimlessly slap down graphics on a page or plop down a column of text wherever it happens to land. Instead, you should set up your pages with a consistent system of margin guides, column guides and ruler guides — otherwise known as […]

Design Basics: Increasing Image Impact

In our quest for developing winning design strategies, we’ve looked at design planning, layout balance, text techniques, use of editorial elements, picture and text integration, and depth-adding strategies. In this article, we’ll explore several techniques for enhancing the impact of digital photographs, including effective cropping, picture shape, adding focus to pictures, and special effect options. […]

Under the Desktop: Color Me Grayscale?

Figuring the actual cost of printing a particular page from an inkjet is difficult enough. On top of that, ordering replacement ink cartridges is usually a painful experience, particularly for creative professionals on a budget. However, it is possible to reduce some printing costs without sacrificing output quality. As I pointed out in my previous […]

Photoshop How-To: Create Stunning Type Effects

This story is taken from “Photoshop Type Effects Visual Encyclopedia” with the permission of its publisher, New Riders. You may not think of Adobe Photoshop as a typographic program. In truth, fine typography is not its strong suit. But you can do some amazing things with type in Photoshop, thereby giving your text added punch […]

Best Face Forward: Corel Painter 8 Gets a Needed Makeover

From its inception under Fractal Design, Corel Painter has retained the crown as the finest natural-media graphics-creation software that money can buy. Painter’s feature set is so deep and wide that it is virtually impossible to touch bottom. The sheer volume of pens, pencils, chalk, brushes, paint, paper, nozzles, gradients, weaves, and assorted special effects, […]

dot-font: The Pleasures of Old Type Books

dot-font was a collection of short articles written by editor and typographer John D. Barry (the former editor and publisher of the typographic journal U&lc) for CreativePro. If you’d like to read more from this series, click here. Eventually, John gathered a selection of these articles into two books, dot-font: Talking About Design and dot-font: Talking […]

Digital Photography How-To: Converting Color Photos into Black-and-White Images

This story is taken from “Exploring Digital Photography” (Element K Journals). Creativepro.com readers can subscribe to Element K Journals at a discount. Click here to learn more. Black and white images have a special elegance that puts them in a class by themselves. Many people admire black-and-white photography, but the average digital camera only takes […]

Heavy Metal Madness: When Print Advertising Was King, and People Still Had a Gay Time

I feel fortunate to have grown up at the tail end of the black and white era — a time that now seems less complicated and in the dewy mist of memory somehow more honest. When I rushed home from elementary school and turned on the TV, Mike Nelson’s underwater adventures on Sea Hunt were […]