Any logo, greeting card, photo collage, newsletter, or book cover that might be created using desktop publishing techniques is composed of a combination of specific elements. They are the individual building blocks that all come together to make what we instantly recognize as the About logo with its red ball, the cover of PC World magazine, or our own face rendered as a caricature.

People go to college and take hours and hours of classes to learn all about the elements of design and how to use them but you’re going to get a crash course introduction in today’s daily dose – without stepping foot in a classroom.

Class Notes: This is not simply a word-a-day course. The lessons follow a specific order in roughly the following groupings: General concepts > Things you need > Font specifics > Image specifics > Prepress & Printing > Rules & Tutorials (bold indicates the stage in which this lesson falls)

Today’s Definition
Elements of Design
Can you draw a straight (or crooked) line, pick a color from a box of crayons, or put a square peg into a round hole?

Today’s Trivia
Digital Elements of Design
Much like molecules are made up of atoms which in turn are made up of even smaller components, the elements of design can be further broken down into more basic bits – a drop of ink, a dot made with the tip of a pencil. In desktop publishing one of the tiniest elements is a pixel – short for picture element. A pixel is the digital equivalent of a drop of ink or that pencil dot. It’s the smallest element that makes up what you see on your computer screen. Learn more…

We’re going to get personal in lesson 5 of our Start a Desktop Publishing Business Email Course. Tell me, what’s so special about you? What makes you unique? How will you convince prospective clients that you’re the designer they should be doing business with?

This and the next few lessons will explore issues related to you, your qualifications, your target market, and how you are going to find customers for your new business.

Missed a lesson? Get it here: http://desktoppub.about.com/c/ec/83lost.htm

Lesson Five
What’s So Special About You?
USP is your unique selling point. Also called your unique selling proposition, it is what sets you and your business — or you as an individual — apart from your competition. It can be an actual fact or a perceived difference or specialty. Every business needs one.

Your Assignment
Develop Your USP
Answer the four questions in this lesson about your business. Pick out at least one key point from your answers to each question. Which one stands out in your mind? Run your ideas past a few trusted friends to find the one that best expresses what is special about what you offer. Now, take what’s unique about your business and express it as a benefit to your customer.

For inspiration, take a look at some examples that a desktop publishing business might use.

Discussion
Talk About Starting a Business
Come to the DTP Classroom to ask questions about any of the topics covered in this email course or other questions you have about learning desktop publishing or starting a freelance design business.
http://forums.about.com/ab-desktoppub3/

Sure, you can use clip art or photos “as is” but for that extra touch, consider a little editing. You don’t even have to be an expert with graphics software to turn canned clip art into custom creations for your greeting card.

This is Lesson 5 in the 9-Day Create a Greeting Card Class. If you did not receive or lost a previous lesson, retrieve it here: Missing Lessons

Definitions
Edit, Resize, Recolor
There are dozens of ways to modify graphics. We’ll tackle just a few.

Instruction
Simple Editing
In this lesson I’ll show you how the images selected for Grandma Baker’s greeting card can be easily edited to make three almost similar images look as if they are part of a matched set.

Assignment
Play With Your Graphics
Spend today learning some of the ways you can manipulate simple graphics in your software. Not all programs have the same features, but at the very least you should be able to resize, and possibly recolor, rotate or flip your graphics. Try it!

DTP Classroom
Come on into the forum to discuss the graphics tools in your page layout software or how to use other graphics software you own.

Right Down the Middle
There is nothing inherently wrong with centered text. As with ragged right or fully-justified text alignment, what works for one design might be totally inappropriate for another layout. There are simply fewer situations where centered text is appropriate. Today’s lesson suggests when and when not to center your text.

Use Centered Text Sparingly
When in doubt, don’t center it.

Pages in this Lesson
1: Centered Text
2: Assignment

Tips, Trivia, Tidbits
Here Comes the Bride…
Formal wedding invitations are one instance where centered text is traditional and appropriate. Engraved wedding invites are traditional as well. But if you want to buck tradition (with or without the centered text), there’s a growing trend toward do-it-yourself invitations. Pick up tips and find materials for creating wedding invitations and related bridal and wedding materials with computer software and printing from the About Desktop Publishing site with these Wedding and Anniversary Projects

Previous 4 Lessons in this Class
Lesson 1: Space After Punctuation
Lesson 2: Space After Paragraphs
Lesson 3: Number of Fonts
Lesson 4: Text Alignment

Create a Portfolio in 6 Days
Lesson 5: Organizing Your Portfolio
There are several ways you can organize the contents of your portfolio. In this lesson you’ll explore some tried-and-true methods and based on what you hope to accomplish with your portfolio you’ll look at each method and find the arrangements that work best for you and your portfolio pieces. Go to Lesson 5: Organizing Your Portfolio

Previous Lessons You Might Have Missed or Lost
Lesson 1: Why Use a Portfolio
Review the basics of having a portfolio and who does or doesn’t need one in Lesson 1.

Lesson 2: What Goes in a Portfolio
Review the types of material you might include in your portfolio in Lesson 2.

Lesson 3: What Goes in a Beginner Portfolio
Review ways to build a collection of portfolio pieces even if you don’t think you have much design work to show off in Lesson 3.

Lesson 4: Choosing a Portfolio Case
Review considerations for the type and size of portfolio case you’ll use in Lesson 4.

Day Five Lesson
Get Organized by Tagging Your Photos
Get started creating a tag hierarchy and tagging your own photo collection.
Ask Questions and Get Help with this Lesson

Optional Bonus Material
Tricks for Selecting Multiple Pictures
You may think you know all the ways you can select multiple photos in Photoshop Elements Photo Organizer, but here are some tricks that you might not know.

When to Use Tags or Collections
There are several ways to think about the differences between tags and collections in Photoshop Elements Organizer. Here are some guidelines for deciding which feature to use when cataloging your pictures.

Generate Instant Tags in Photoshop Elements
If you’re just getting started with Photoshop Elements Organizer and you already have your photos fairly well organized into folders, you’re in luck! The instant tag feature will make your life so much easier. Here’s how you can quickly generate tags from folder names.

Quick Reference
Index of Lessons
Request Missing Lessons by Email

In the Spotlight
How To Fix Red Eye with Picasa
Picasa is a popular free digital photo organizer from Google. It includes a tool for red eye removal that helps you quickly remove the glowing red pupils from your snapshot photos.

Decorating Easter Eggs in Illustrator
Sara Froehlich shows you how to make Easter eggs in Adobe Illustrator — from drawing and coloring them, to dividing them using the pathfinder palette and using brush strokes and symbols to decorate them.

Graphics Challenge: Think Spring!
Still caught in the clutches of Winter? Can’t wait for Robins to return and the Crocus to poke through the ground? Well then it’s time to Think Spring! This week’s challenge is to create your image of Spring.

More Topics

• Easter Egg and Chicks with Painter
• 3D Easter Eggs in Illustrator
• Free Christian Brushes
• Free Christian Shapes
• Free Easter Egg and Bunny Graphics
• Resize a Batch of Images with XnView
• Turn Color Clip Art into Line Art

Tax Time
Taxing Matters
Get all the advice you need for tax preparation, from gathering documents to budget planning and tips for saving more.

In the Spotlight
Kreate-a-Lope Envelope Kit
After designing and printing a fabulous greeting card or photo card, why stick it in a generic envelope? This kits makes it easy to create a perfectly sized envelope using all kinds of great papers.

Parts of an Envelope
Did you know that envelopes have throats and shoulders? Learn more about these parts as well as folds, seams, and flaps.

Envelope Styles and Dimensions
Announcement, Baronial, Booklet, Catalog, Commerical, and Square Envelopes come in many standard sizes.

More Topics

• No Bitmap Photos, Please
  BMP, Perhaps?
• Setting Up File for Perfect Bind
  Discuss It!
• Character Style Problem in QuarkXPress
  Can You Help?
• Framemaker Bullet Problem
  Any FM Experts?

Tax Time
Taxing Matters
Get all the advice you need for tax preparation, from gathering documents to budget planning and tips for saving more.

Definitions
What is a Graphic?
In addition to the basic definitions for graphics, clip art, and graphics style, explore the expanded definitions for Clip Art, Border, Dingbat, Downrule, End Sign, Graph, Lines, and Rule.

Instruction
A Matter of Style
In addition to sources for graphics, this lesson looks at how to mix and match multiple pieces of clip art or other images. Be sure to examine the images linked in the last few paragraphs of this lesson.

Assignment
Find Your Image
Take as long as you need to go through the clip art and photos that came with your software or other image collections you own. Find the graphics you want to use on your greeting card. Keep graphics style in mind. Don’t miss the exercise included near the end of this lesson.

DTP Classroom
Have questions about where to find the best clip art collections? Ask in the classroom forum.

Related Tutorials & Resources of Interest
Images for Desktop Publishing
Looking for more sources for clip art and photos for your greeting card and other projects? Start here. You’ll also find tutorials on how to pick the right pictures and how to place pictures into desktop publishing software.

Create a Portfolio in 6 Days
Lesson 4: Choosing a Portfolio Case
Making a good first impression applies to your appearance in person, on the phone, in writing, and on your business card. It also applies to the container you use to hold your portfolio. Even if you can’t afford a zippered leather case with handle, a ratty old folder won’t do. In this lesson we’ll look at how to choose a portfolio including size. In the assignment you’ll also find links to specific types of portfolios to help you find the one that works for you. Go to Lesson 4: Choosing a Portfolio Case

Previous Lessons You Might Have Missed or Lost
Lesson 1: Why Use a Portfolio
Review the basics of having a portfolio and who does or doesn’t need one in Lesson 1.

Lesson 2: What Goes in a Portfolio
Review the types of material you might include in your portfolio in Lesson 2.

Lesson 3: What Goes in a Beginner Portfolio
Review ways to build a collection of portfolio pieces even if you don’t think you have much design work to show off in Lesson 3.