InDesign and Photoshop

Powerful Programs

Two platforms that change the game when dealing with public relations campaigns are InDesign and Photoshop. As someone who typically only uses the Canva platform, when first working with InDesign, it was quite the daunting task. It seems very complicated, but once you get familiar with the platform, it becomes easier and able to happen at your finger tips. Photoshop is mainly meant for combining more than one image, blending images or retouching and correcting pictures. Its important that companies have the ability to use photoshop in order for pictures to be the most professional and specific to the desired campaign.

We used InDesign for a typesetting assignment, which had each student replicate a news letter. The purpose was to challenge each student to pay close attention to detail for things such as font, font size, color and other page features.

Why it's unique

I would like to enlighten people to the fact that, even though it is tideous and a bit intimidating, that using InDesign and Photoshop can be even easier than using platforms with pre selected templates. Once you get the hang of things, it is significantly easier to create designs specifc to your niche, rather than reusing templates over and over. Not only does it give you complete creative control over the design, but also opens a door to limitless possibilties. From different effects, shapes, opaqueness and texture, to font, pictures, and color, there are so many more options with InDesign and photoshop.

Where to learn

Whether you learn firsthand or take a class, there are many different ways to immerse yourself and learn the tips and tricks to Adobe InDesign and photoshop. Youtube can be a great tool to use to be able to surf through user generated content to see which tips and tricks are truly the best.

What makes a good design?

The most important thing when creating and planning public relations newsletters is ensuring that the piece is cohesive and does not clash. This means complimentary colors, fonts, font sizes, and composition of the overall page. If something is overwhelming the page, it makes it hard to focus, therefore harder for the audience or reader to comprehend what the newletter is about.