Things you might have to teach your client

Posted on Thu - March 4, 2010

Things you might have to teach your client - part two

Elementary

Most page layout programs and web design programs use elements.

Each element can be resized, positioned, and manipulated independently.

Here's one I did in a simple program, the DYMO Label.

This is a bookplate for use in my library. The "NeoWayland Special Collections" graphic doesn't change, So I actually put that together in TypeStyler and saved it as a PDF.

In the DYMO Label program, this has three elements, the graphic, the title, and the other information. I import the title and other information from Readerware as I am inputting locations.

Even though in the "NeoWayland Special Collections" is one element in DYMO Label, in Typestyler, it's many more. The "N," "e," triskelion, W, and "ayland" are all separate elements, even though they appear to form one word. "special" and "collections" are each their own element. Here's what it looks like in the original program, approximately.

The gray box around the top is part of the program, not part of my design. The original design was almost 7.5 inches wide, so I worked to make sure it would look good when reduced and when working with a limited printer. The obvious step is to lighten triskelion so the image density doesn't overwhelm the rest of the design. All the "outline" elements had their line pixel width adjusted to three instead of one. This is actually a version of an existing design, so other than a couple of variations ("library," "bibliotheca") it went fairly quick.

A very long title will shrink the size of the letters in the title element. If the condition is unusual, I might include that in the other element.

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