Dropping caps help and advice

Dropping Caps.

This is quite a regular convention for magazines, especially on the more text heavy features (like DPS). Sadly, you can't do this directly through Pages - but you can still achieve the same effect.

A dropped cap (short for dropped capital) is where the first cap letter of a paragraph is (usually) heightened to between two and five lines of body text. It can also be in a different font and is a way of splitting the copy up.

I've included a rough guide on how to do it manually in pages - but, as with all good designs, be careful not to over-use them.

Think as well about how you can break up text in the body of an article. Newspapers use crossheads (especially the red-top tabloids) whereas magazines use boosed boxes (or buttons, or skyboxes depending on house style) to make the better quotes stand out.

Anyway, here's a step-by-step guide for producing drop cap effects in Pages for you.


1. From the Pages toolbar or from Insert, choose Text Box.

2. Replace the words "Type to enter text" with the capital letter of your choice.

3. Highlight the letter that you've added and choose an appropriate font and size. Doing so will probably involve some trial and error.

4. Left-click outside and then inside the text box to show its borders.

5. Resize the text box. Here too, expect some trial and error.

6. With the borders of the text box still showing, open the Inspector (from the Pages toolbar or from View > Inspector) and choose Wrap Inspector, the third icon from the left.

7. For Object Placement, select "Inline (moves with text)."

8. Check "Object causes wrap" and select the icon on the far left.

9. For Text Fit, select the icon on the left. Change the Extra Space setting to 0. (You might experiment later.)

10. Now position the text box in your document. Depending upon the letter (or numeral) you're dropping in, you might need to tinker by changing Object Placement to Floating and moving your text box (then switching back to Inline). Or you might need to change the Extra Space setting. Getting things right here may prove tedious. But I think that the drop-cap effect is worth the effort.

Drop numerals are ok - but think about where you'd use them. Again, less can sometimes be more.

Research FOR Friday's lesson

Ouch. But, for next lesson, you need to have carried out a little bit of research. Nothing too complex, but it will help you greatly with your design - either validating your own design styles or giving you some food for thought.

Here's what you are going to do, again, BEFORE Friday's lesson - so you can blog it.

1. Get someone who has not seen your front page.
2. Tell them that, before you show it to them, they will be expected to write down everything they see - but ask them to write this information down in the order they notice it. It's NOT a memory test so, for example, you ask John to write down everything he notices on your front page in the order in which he sees them, so he writes...
Masthead
Image
barcode
Main story headline
Price

and so on.

Also, get them to say who they think the target audience is and what type of mag it is - give them nothing to go on, not even the fact that it's a music mag.

Obviously, the more people you talk to the better your reseach will be but all of you MUST show and get results from one person.

If you're not sure about what you've got to do, come and see me.

Also, make sure you put a comment on this post so I know you've seen the work and understand it.

Good luck.

I'll see you Friday.

Comments and advice

Make sure that during your evaluations and design work you look at - and add to - the comments posted on your blogs, especially those from me.

There are a lot of generic comments I make which apply to more than just the blogger's work, so it's in your best interests to read what's on each other's blog.

Also, make sure you keep commenting, professionally and critically, on each other's work. A few of you have been posting up work which asks questions (for example, "which font looks best?") and make sure you keep helping each other (and yourselves) out by giving constructive criticism.

Don't forget to look at the last piece of work I set (when I was away) - make sure you've blogged that and added it to my blog.

Deconstruction

Ok - before next lesson you need to deconstruct the folllowing cover. Remember your language use - semantic analysis (connotation, signifier et al) and highlight the postves as well as any improvements.

Ps.
Just a point - it would be good if you posted on your own blogs AND added your work as a comment to this one. Thanks.

Links to explore

Make sure you look through the following links and compare your own progression.

You don't have to blog anything specific about the links - just make sure you are aware of what's required and how you are progressing...

http://www.alevelmediastudies09-11.blogspot.com/

http://getaheadocrmedia.blogspot.com/