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Progress Report #2

Let me start by giving you a PDF of the design for my manual. What’s in there is the cover, front matter (intro with dummy text), finalized TOC, and the design for the chapter pages. I’m still not totally sure what I’m going to do with the content pages..most likely something very similar to the front matter pages, but with callouts and tip boxes using the same green and purple colors. So here’s the PDF for that:

Illustrator cover front TOC

I’ve drafted a little over half of the modules for the manual. The reason there isn’t more done is because after my presentation, I seriously began doubting the idea to use fruit as a “recurring theme” in the manual. It was actually one of the responses to my presentation that got me thinking about it. Every illustration that I made looked really “clip-arty” and cheesy, and I really didn’t like the way it was coming out.

As I’ve been writing over the last couple weeks, I’ve found that what I’m really going for is a beginners manual. (Not so basic that I need to go over how to use a mouse or how to open the program.) Like I said in my presentation, there are some seriously intricate drawings that can be made in Illustrator, and given my not-so-great artistic ability, I’m not sure how advanced I should go into the software.

I feel like I could be comfortable making a line drawing of something like a bookcase.  However, since I would like the modules to be stand alone, it’s hard to incorporate a specific type of drawing into them, since I would be trying to build off previous modules to produce a better image. I think I could use the illustration of a bookcase in chapter 2 (lines and shapes), but find a way to make each module stand alone.

I guess what I’m saying is that I’m having a sort of “mid-capstone crisis” of sorts. I’m not really freaking out or anything, but I’ve come to a crossroads where I think my project is going in a slightly different direction than I had originally planned. Instead of being a task-oriented manual, I’ve decided to go with a stand-alone module type of manual.

From here, I’m going to finish the content, and start transferring everything into InDesign from Word once I finalize the design for the content pages. My biggest problem in the past week has been that my free trial of InDesign expired on Saturday, so I have to go back and forth to the library to work on the project. (Slightly annoying, but actually better because I get more work done at the library!) I’m much more comfortable with both Illustrator and InDesign at this point, so I’m confident that I can finish up the rest of this project without any more hitches.  🙂

 

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hahaha

I just realized the link for the project went in the middle of my sentence. But it works! I didn’t realize until now that I could edit the address and company name..so that kind of stinks, since I’ve already turned it into a PDF. But now that I know that, I can make sure the next assignment is super cool.

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RoboHelp project

Here’s the link to my RoboHelp project:

http://people.umass.edu/acrochel/WebHelp/

Hope it still works! 🙂

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Progress report #1 – Eng 382

To: Professor Solberg

Date: 3/13/12

Re: First progress Report for capstone project

 

So far, the majority of the work that I’ve been doing has been watching tutorials on the basic tools in Illustrator. I’ve written down some directions on basic stuff like:

  • creating and saving new documents
  • the pencil tools
  • the selection tools
  • the type tools
  • the rectangle/shape tools
  • the gradient tool
  • the crop and eraser tools
  • the fill and stroke indicators

I’m currently working on a module about graphs: how to make them and insert them. I’m also writing a module on the brushes panel.

I’m still pretty unsure how the manual is going to be structured. I’m not sure how I’m going to separate the material, since there is so much to include. I guess I’m mostly just overwhelmed at the amount of stuff that you can do with Illustrator, and I’m not sure what I want to include. I know that I want to do a “beginner/intermediate” manual, so I think I want to structure the TOC like this:

    1. Getting started: creating and saving new files, adjusting your workspace, using templates
    2. Lines: Brush tool, pencil tool, tracing tool, pen tool
    3. Creating shapes: geometric objects
    4. Color: Fill & Stroke, color settings, pallets, gradient, transparency
    5. Layers: The layers panel, creating layers, deleting layers
    6. Effects and Filters: Using effects, using filters, applying effects and filters, editing an applied effect, rasterizing objects
    7. Printing and exporting: General print options, output options, saving as a PDF, exporting files to Adobe Photoshop

So that’s what I’ve got so far…I think I might want to go a little more in depth, but I’m searching around for other stuff that might fit within the content that I already have.

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PDF file of InDesign design and inspiration design

Here is my design for the Hierarchy and Alignment module.

firstdesign

And this was my inspiration.

 

So that’s it. I’m thinking I’ll make a totally new one for my actual design in the actual handbook, but I’m glad that I could get a feel for how InDesign works. Now I know how much time it will take to make a whole page design.

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In response to Bush and Bolter

When I read the Bush article, “As We May Think”, I found it extremely interesting to note where the ideas for technologies today (computers, laptops, and smart phones) came from. The “Memex” being the most interesting, in my opinion. Bush had a vision of “simple, elegant information access” that mimicked the “intricate web of trails carried by the cells of the brain”. Bush’s vision seems outdated and antiquated now that computers are an everyday commodity for most Americans, but in the 1940s, it was revolutionary.

I’d have to say that I found the article interesting and informative. I enjoyed reading through Bush’s thought processes and responses to the new technologies of his time. He seemed to really have a passion for advancing technologies, and wanted himself and other scientists to be able to access all of the new information readily.

Bolter’s Chapter 3, “Writing as Technology” and the section on “Hypertext” seemed, to me, to be a little redundant. I felt like the information was out of date, and most of it was what most people would call “common knowledge”, especially the parts about the history of the printing press and other ancient forms of writing. Most people would assume, even if they didn’t know the exact history of the printing press, that before computers, people hand wrote books and papers, and that doing so took a considerable amount of skill and artful craft. They would also probably already know that various cultures of people have various forms and styles of writing. The most frustrating quote for me was, “Writing is a technology…It is a method for arranging verbal thoughts in a visual space. The writer always needs a surface upon which to make his or her marks and a tool with which to make them.” Uh…duh. In order to write something down, you obviously would need a writing utensil and something to write on. Maybe because I’m a part of this generation, I’m so used to “technology” that it is second nature? I’m not sure, but I remained frustrated with the whole article for the remainder of the time that I spent reading it.

I can appreciate the article for what it is, though. It’s just a history of writing as a technology, and what may be obvious and redundant to me now, may have been incredible and modern to the people of the 17th and 18th centuries. I just didn’t find it that interesting or informative.