ITLS 4230 - 6230 - Instructional Graphics Production 1
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Course Overview
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Click image to learn more...
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Course Goals. There are three main goals...
- Learn and apply fundamental graphic design principles and generalizations
- learn principles of contrast, repetition, alignment and grids, proximity, typography, color theory, focal points, and more!
- Develop specific skills and competencies in Photoshop, Bridge, and Camera Raw
- Use Adobe Bridge to effectively organize and find images, and open them in Adobe Camera Raw and Photoshop
- Use the workflow panels in Adobe Camera Raw to adjust and correct images
- Understand the Photoshop interface, and use brushes to draw, erase, and color black & white images
- Understand and use photoshop masks effectively to select and hide or show an adjustment
- Be able to use the type tool to create text and manipulate it.
- Be able to transform selections in Photoshop
- Save Photoshop creations in various common graphic formats such as JPG, PNG, TIFF, etc.
- Understand and use the various ways to make selections in Photoshop
- Understand and use Photoshop's adjustment layers and menu adjustments
- Understand and use Photoshop's content aware technology
- Understand and use Photoshop's vector tools
- Understand and use Photoshop's blending modes
- Understand and use Photoshop's filters
- Understand and use Photoshop's preset panels (layer effects and styles, swatches, gradients, brushes, patterns, etc.)
- Develop your creative capacity as you design instructional graphics and products
- You will have voice and choice in how you create your assigned graphic design projects
- You will have creative opportunities to work on real world design projects
Here are some visual examples of the types of things you will learn how to do!
Learn graphic design principles and put them into practice
Learn to use filters and brushes to create art from photos.
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Learn how to bring out the best in your photos!
Learn how to use blending modes and layer effects!
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Do real world projects for clients!
Learn how to manipulate objects such as text in Photoshop!
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Learn principles for great typography and layout!
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Learn how to blend images you've created in Photoshop into well-designed text layouts.
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Required Software
Adobe Photoshop Creative Cloud (Currently CC2021)
You need to have access to Photoshop CC to take this course. Utah State University students have free access to download the Adobe Creative Cloud. Click this link to apply with your A-number and USU password. If you're using this course as an open education resource, a monthly subscription to Adobe Creative Cloud is available at $19.99 per month for the entire design suite or $9.99 per month for the Creative Cloud Photography plan (Photoshop, Lightroom, and Adobe Spark, which also includes Bridge). The lessons and tutorials on this site have been prepared using Photoshop Creative Cloud.
Course Materials
All lessons, tutorials, resources, and reading materials are accessible through this site. Grades, scoring rubrics, readings, exercise files, messages, assignments, announcements, etc., for Utah State University students in the course will be handled through Canvas @ Utah State University.
Digital Storage Backup
Keeping a backup of your files somewhere other than your computer is a good habit to get into. It is recommended that you keep a copy of your files on an external drive, flash drive, and/or online file storage "clouds" such as Google Drive or Dropbox.com. Both provide free storage as well as higher quantities of storage space available to purchase. USU students who have set up an aggiemail.usu.edu account have unlimited storage provided through Google Drive. USU also offers students 50GB of free storage through Box.USU.edu. Just log in with your A-Number and strong password. I can't emphasize enough how important it is to back up your work. Hard drives and flash drives fail.
Adobe Photoshop Creative Cloud (Currently CC2021)
You need to have access to Photoshop CC to take this course. Utah State University students have free access to download the Adobe Creative Cloud. Click this link to apply with your A-number and USU password. If you're using this course as an open education resource, a monthly subscription to Adobe Creative Cloud is available at $19.99 per month for the entire design suite or $9.99 per month for the Creative Cloud Photography plan (Photoshop, Lightroom, and Adobe Spark, which also includes Bridge). The lessons and tutorials on this site have been prepared using Photoshop Creative Cloud.
Course Materials
All lessons, tutorials, resources, and reading materials are accessible through this site. Grades, scoring rubrics, readings, exercise files, messages, assignments, announcements, etc., for Utah State University students in the course will be handled through Canvas @ Utah State University.
Digital Storage Backup
Keeping a backup of your files somewhere other than your computer is a good habit to get into. It is recommended that you keep a copy of your files on an external drive, flash drive, and/or online file storage "clouds" such as Google Drive or Dropbox.com. Both provide free storage as well as higher quantities of storage space available to purchase. USU students who have set up an aggiemail.usu.edu account have unlimited storage provided through Google Drive. USU also offers students 50GB of free storage through Box.USU.edu. Just log in with your A-Number and strong password. I can't emphasize enough how important it is to back up your work. Hard drives and flash drives fail.
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Required Book for this course...
The Non-Designers Design Book by Robin Williams (4th Edition) A tried and true, easy-to-read guide to design terms and techniques from a "level 0" perspective. If your attitude is "I can't even draw a stick figure, how can I possibly design" then this is the book for you. This author's philosophy, introduced in the first few pages of the book, is that learning design can be simplified to 3 main steps:
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About This Class
This course was developed specifically for a 15 week college semester and is currently being conducted as a blended face-to-face & online course for Utah State University students. I have made the course an open education resource (OER), so anyone may freely access this course online and learn from it. If you have questions, feel free to contact me, the course author and instructor.
Nathan Smith
nathan.smith@usu.edu
Subject: Beginning Photoshop and Graphic Design
This course was developed specifically for a 15 week college semester and is currently being conducted as a blended face-to-face & online course for Utah State University students. I have made the course an open education resource (OER), so anyone may freely access this course online and learn from it. If you have questions, feel free to contact me, the course author and instructor.
Nathan Smith
nathan.smith@usu.edu
Subject: Beginning Photoshop and Graphic Design
Beginning Photoshop & Graphic Design by Nathan Smith is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.
