Graphic Design

Microsoft Word's poor list alignment.png

How to make your numbered lists look normal in Microsoft Word

If your numbered list goes past nine items in Microsoft Word, you’ll need this trick to get your list to look professional.  By default, Microsoft Word will align your numbered list by the first digit in the number. You’ll end up with an ugly list like this one: Notice how the periods after the number …

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screenshot of page with nine buttons

When a site has so many buttons, you don’t know what to do.

Have you ever visited a site looking to download something, but then the site is so completely covered with buttons, you don’t know which button to tap. That’s what happened to me today. I’m completely grateful for sites that give free resources for people to download. It’s wonderful. It’s great. It’s the age of the …

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Tribune Publishing logo, 2018

Tribune Publishing new logo, replacing the old tronc logo

The first time most Tribune Publishing employees (myself included) saw our new logo was on our Cisco phone display this morning. As a designer, I enjoy that my first experience with our brand was in 8-bit grayscale. For the Tribune employees who check their email on the way into the office, their first experience of …

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Will reddit screw up their redesign?

Reddit’s upcoming redesign might cause another migration

With the $200 million new funding for Reddit, they are planning a site redesign. (reports recode) Huffman’s plan for the new funding includes a redesign of reddit.com — the company is literally re-writing all of its code, some of which is more than a decade old. An early version of the new design, which we …

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QuarkXpress 2016 Productivity Bundle

A 20-year-old design program still clinging on, kinda

Quark XPress still sends emails to designers trying to convince them to purchase their dated software. 20 years ago Quark was the premiere layout program for print designers. Then around 2000 Adobe released their Quark-Killer, Adobe Indesign. Since that time 15 years ago, designers quickly dropped Quark in favor of Indesign. We haven’t looked back …

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List of 140+ Chicago design agencies and design organizations on Facebook

The Chicago design list is a master Facebook list of 147 Chicago design agencies and design organizations. Follow this list to see what’s happening in the Chicago design scene. Or maybe you can use it to network with other designers in Chicago. I combed through Facebook to find all the design agencies and design organizations in Chicago that …

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7 Reasons to not start a design agency whose focus is Microsoft Word templates

Thinking of starting a design agency whose sole focus is creating Microsoft Word templates? Yesterday I covered the need for this unique and undervalued service. Today we cover why one should not create an agency with a focus on Microsoft Word templates. 1) Word templates are extremely undervalued Approach a company and say, “we’ll redesign your …

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A business opportunity: designing Word templates for companies

There is a market opportunity for a design agency to be focused solely on making branded Microsoft Word templates for companies. Which is not just sticking the logo at the top of the Word file. Branding in a simple Word document can be done with many of the tools in Microsoft Word. Here’s a few …

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ebook standard sizes for covers

What size should you make your ebook cover? There are many devices with different size screens. One size fits all Many people recommend a generic 600×800 size. But that’s for older e-ink screens. Three experts online each have a different recommendation for a catch-all size. Kindle Expert recommends 1876×2500 (7/12/2012). Cinda Fernando likes 1600×2400 (9/27/2012). …

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An experience of converting an InDesign file to ePub/mobi

Read the experience of a smart man (Craig Mod, MacDowell Writing Fellow, 2012 TechFellow) getting his print book converted into an eBook. I stumbled across his article “Platforming Books” from a tweet by the Director of Digital Information at the Art Institute, ‏@lili_czarina. It’s a rather long webpage, but the main item I would like …

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Learn to make eBooks from InDesign: Part 2

More resources I’ve found on my second day of researching how to make eBooks from InDesign. ================ Barnes & Noble’s eBook publisher home pubit.barnesandnoble.com/ “PubIt! ePub Formatting Guide” (PDF) Download our ePub Formatting Guide for information on how best to format your ePub document. — pretty much tech specs, raw stuff. — The maximum viewing …

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Learn to make eBooks from InDesign: Part 1

As I’m learning how to create eBooks, I will be archiving all the webpages and PDFs I read; and all the items I install. I’m hoping that as I find these resources that they will be helpful to others who are learning how to make eBooks. ================ Read Adobe’s eBook intro page. http://blogs.adobe.com/digitalpublishing/2010/03/create_epub_ebooks_with_adobe_indesign.html — Has …

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