Algonquin College Graphic Design Program Computer Graphics Course Curriculum Algonquin College Graphic Design Program Computer Graphics Course Curriculum

Course

DSN1567 Computer Graphics Two

Prerequisites

Instructor

Alain Paradis

Course Description

Students focus on creating documents which comply with industry standards for print production. Emphasis is placed on the importance of file management and job planning. With the support of detailed online lessons and video tutorials, students learn increasingly intricate software techniques for building electronic documents using Adobe InDesign, Photoshop, Illustrator and Acrobat. These documents will pass preflight at a commercial printer.

Logistics

This course consists of in-class lessons. At each class, we will practice software skills once together, then you will perform them on your own. These classes are meant to be formative in nature. Every few weeks, you will independently complete all the skills practiced to date during one class.

Attending each class is imperative. See the attendance policy.

Layers

Adobe Photoshop
Layers are among the fundamental features in Photoshop which aid editing. Superficially, they're simple, but the feature set goes deep. Photoshop features a number of kinds of layers. This is what we'll explore here.

Blend Modes

Adobe Photoshop
Blend Modes are used like paints being mixed. You have your base colour which you blend to obtain your blended result.

Adjustment Layers

Adobe Photoshop
Adjustment Layers give instructions to layers below to do something like change colour, increase contrast, invert colours and much, much more. They're central to a non-destructive colour adjustment workflow.

Compositing

Adobe Photoshop
In Photoshop, a composite is a collage of multiple photos and graphics with a theme. The focus of this assignment is to build one of these compositions in the most non-destructive, editable way possible.

Tabs & Indents

Adobe InDesign
The all-mighty tab character can do wonders in InDesign. We'll explore setting indented text and building grids with tabs and indents, too.

Bullet & Number Lists

Adobe InDesign
Whether they are bulleted or numbered, InDesign is very adept at creating lists. There are very granular, flexible controls to create the lists that fit your design.

Build a Document

Adobe InDesign
In this assignment, we'll look at the foundations of building an InDesign document from scratch. We'll set up the document to for maximum flexibility when doing revisions. This is really how every InDesign document you make should be built.

Pixels to Vectors

Mac OS Adobe Illustrator
Adobe have designed a wonderful workflow for getting a sketch off paper into vectors in Illustrator. You can even create multiple colour versions in a matter of seconds. Let's give it a go.

Unleash Your Inner Vectors

Adobe Illustrator
Your job is to draw your own image, scan it, then use Image Trace to vectorize it. Once it's vectors, use Live Paint and Edit Colours to create a total of three different colour variations.

Graph Design

Adobe Illustrator Adobe InDesign
Boring graphs can really put the kibosh on a great design. As a designer, one of the most difficult and rewarding jobs is to transform boring data into exciting, engaging visuals. The challenge is to present so many numbers in a compelling way.

Graph Layout

Adobe Illustrator Adobe InDesign
Boring graphs can really put the kibosh on a great design. As a designer, one of the most difficult and rewarding jobs is to transform boring data into exciting, engaging visuals. The challenge is to present so many numbers in a compelling way.