- Maker: Monique Cole
- Level: Graduate
- Program: Composition, Rhetoric, and Digital Media
- Course: WRIT 5800: Editing, Layout, and Design
- Instructor: Dr. Eric Mason
- Semester Created: Winter 2020
Description:
For Project 5, I took the NSU Writing and Communication Center as my client to create a flipbook. The flipbook showcases five aspects of the WCC: an overview of the center and space, professional development, on-going education and training, social media and marketing, and events. The flipbook is situated in the time frame of the 2018-2020 academic school year; however, the document will be an evolving project that I will continue to work on beyond the class. The cover of the flipbook is an updated version of Project 2, which required students to layout a design that incorporated their logo from Project 1.
Materials and Design Process: The main program that I used to create the flipbook and cover was Adobe InDesign. Both projects allowed me to explore the program to learn how to develop a layout for a multi-page document that would ultimately be exported as a readable PDF file. For both projects, 2 and 5, I ended up laying out the document in the program rather than sketching it out. I found the technique to work better than sketching since I was dealing with multiple pages of content with different lengths of texts and images. The frustrating part was that for some sections, like the marketing plan, I wanted to take updated photos. However, being in quarantine I had to only use the photos I had access to in the WCC’s social and main drive. The other challenging aspect of the project was developing an overall structure of how-to layout the table of contents. I ended up moving around sub-sections to best reflect where they would fit best and be properly represented. Many sections and content did not make the cut, simply for the lack of time.
Reflection:
Going into my fifth year of working at the WCC, it brings me a lot of excitement being able to work on the flipbook. The flipbook acts as a visual scrapbook highlighting the achievements and features of the center. Since the flipbook takes place over a certain amount of time there is a lot of information to format which can be overwhelming at times. I am very fortunate that I had a wealth of content, both text and photos, at my luxury to play around with when formatting the document. For the sake of time, I decided to only focus on creating the five sections. There are still multiple sections that need to be included in the document. The vast amount of information made me devote a huge sum of time to planning the initial layout of information. Before laying anything out, I developed a table of contents. Due to this, I have intentionally left blank spaces in the document to leave room for future content.
Both Projects, one and five, allowed me to break away from using Canva into more professional software, Adobe InDesign. My initial reaction to the software was frustration. I did not realize that all photos must be saved to remain linked in the document and I had a very hard time trying to create color gradients. However, I navigated these issues by playing around with the use of color boxes. I also divided the photos up by creating folders labeled by their respective sections as a form of organization. Another issue I navigated was photos. Being in quarantine prohibited me from taking updated photos for some sections of the flipbook. Additionally, creating the flipbook has made me realize the importance of having a stockpile of images and keeping records up to date. I am excited to see how the document will continue to evolve during my time at the WCC!
