review and comment on at least two of your peers’ responses: Confirm their understanding of page layout and its value.

• Talk about any experience you have personally had with page layout or how you might have benefited from understanding the role of InDesign when creating work in the past.
• Offer explanations to additional features and benefits to using the InDesign application that you have learned through your readings and Learning Activities.

Challenge any uses of the InDesign page proffered by your peers that you believe are not reasonable, or accurate, uses of the application features.

Nicole Trahan

The Role of InDesign for Creating Page Layouts

            While researching the role of InDesign for layouts within the design industry I came upon several interesting articles. I also wanted to touch on my own experience as an Interior Designer working in the field and having to utilize InDesign to come up with layouts in my own practice and also for portfolio pieces. I think that now more than ever it is important as a designer to stay relevant in design trends and in being able to know these platforms especially ones that are utlized commonly within your design field gives you a greater boost in your field.

            I had never thought that InDesign may be in jeopardy of being left in the dust so to speak in the digital field until I read a few articles that sparked my interest in regards to it just being mainly utilized for print which is also what I only use it for. For all of my digital work I use other outlets i.e. word press etc. I guess I have never even thought of using my InDesign work digitally except to publish my work as a flash player to work interactively as a click or swipe media. When I created my portfolio I printed it to present and also made my own website and created a loop that played continuously and that was the extent of it.

            I think the beauty of InDesign is that it speaks to itself and is truly intune with all of the changes that are made within it. You change a color or a shape and the whole thing shifts and changes. That’s what I really enjoy about InDesign is that it is fluent you can make changes and not have to worry about going through everything painstakingly with a finetooth comb and trying to find all of the text changes and color changes it automatically speaks to itself. Not saying that it is foolproof and that there wont be any changes but its minimal. I much prefer working in InDesign and creating a layout that can mirror itself in which I can create multiple pages of the same likeness and then edit and add unique bits to each page to make them their own.

            I think that the most important thing about knowing InDesign for designers is that you will need to use it in almost any design career you go into. It’s really one of those pieces of software that is a great thing to have on your side. I do like to work with PhotoShop still for somethings better than I than working in InDesign such as Layers. I think that all in all if you pair PhotoShop and InDesign you are unstoppable, they are a great pair together. There are many jobs that I have looked to apply for and they want all of the Adobe create suite but mostly are looking for InDesign and PhotoShop experience.

            InDesign is a wonderful layout program that offers a lot of versitility and is very easy to use. It learns what you are doing as you go and really simplfies the process of desgining the pages of whatever layout you are working on whether it be a magazine or a Furniture Design layout. I think that InDesign will be around for a long time due to these reasons.

Hicks, David. Is InDesign Now Becoming Redundant for Digital Magazine Pulishers? 2 Oct, 2015, http://www.fipp.com/news/opinion/is-indesign-becoming-redundant-for-digital-publishers Accessed August 10 2016.

Fussell, Grace. Photoshop vs InDesign: Which is Best for Print Design. 9 Jun 2014. http://design.tutsplus.com/articles/photoshop-vs-indesign—which-is-best-for-print-design–cms-21020. Accessed August 10 2016.