DTP, Prepress & Graphics Design
As noted on the front page of this web site, there are various prepress/DTP and graphics design techniques used for creating effective content for our customers.
Let’s go through the usual objects that are present on almost any kind of promotional printed material, may it be a flayer, a brochure design, a magazine or an annual banking report.
Design
Every shape has a story. Also, every font/type has a story too. In the modern graphics design we need to choose carefully what font types to use to have the wanted effect with our product. Usually, we do browse thousands of fonts to find the right one, or make a favorite list and decide together with our customers. Unless, the company we work for already has a predefined rule what can or cannot be done in a design. This is called “design standards” for XY firm. Usually, large firms have this, or if one does a licensed publishing of a popular magazine, certain rules are to be followed.
So, when we have our hands free we do a thorough research for the right fonts for the customer.
When we have the right font that “feels” like the mood of the content we want to have we proceed to the shaping of the content. We work on color combination as it is an important psychological carrier, adding details so the design takes form. We play with it. We cut it apart, and then put it back together, usually creating at least 2-3 different design ideas to show to our customers. Then, we show it to them and consult, meditate on it, and get feedback. The most of the people seeing the design should be able to comprehend and like it.
So, after a lot of testing we have our final design and proceed to the application of the DTP tricks we have in order to squeeze out the best of the material in hand.
Image Enhancement
A picture can tell 1000 words – especially if you open it in Photoshop and jazz it up to be clear, sharp, colorful and with a very clear message.
There are a bunch of in-house prepress/DTP tricks we use to get the best out of photos. We are not going to discuss these here – these are secrets. Every job has secrets, but let’s do a presentation about this in the style of “before-after”:
Besides the image enhancement techniques we use, there are a lot of tips and tricks in DTP/prepress. The colors act in a certain way when they meet the paper in the printing procedure. As there are various print techniques, there are various DTP/prepress tips to use for each and every.
Layout
The format of the printed material usually comes in standard forms. But, sometimes, a customer needs something unique. Here I’m not going to get into standard paper sizes and dimensions of visit cards and brochure design. Instead of that, we shall do a presentation about a board game we created.
The customer wanted a board game for kids. It had to be triangular in shape, but the full layout can be a square. It needs to be a puzzle. And, it needs to be cute.
After 3-4 days of research and testing we came to the final version that needed a couple more enhancements. After a week we had the final product:
So, this is a puzzle that is triangular, colorful, fun to mess with and very cheap to produce. As the shape is a triangle we decided to make it in Egyptian style what is a pretty good match for it. The motives came from our archive, and once the design was accepted. We had to do a mathematical calculation about the size and amount of triangles on the board – because it can be put together only one way – so the combinatory rules were used to double-check that all is OK regarding that. Mathematics in design – believe it or not – and of course good old DTP/prepress tricks we have in our sleeves!
Examples from our workshop:
Here are some examples from our graphics design/DTP/prepress/visualization workshop. There are sometimes several version of the same product, and the customer choose the ones they like, or we come to a consensus regarding the design. Note that some of the products are also dislayed in 3d, created for the customer to see the final product – if it has the 3rd dimension – for example the paper bags displayed below.
