This week, I decided it was time to tackle Adobe InDesign. I knew this would be quite a challenge, so I started by watching YouTube tutorials and the course materials provided. Most of my time was spent familiarizing myself with the interface—understanding where everything was located and getting to grips with the basics. Once I had a general understanding, I began experimenting with layout, typography, and grids.
One of the most valuable steps I took was researching type foundries. I explored websites like Fontsmith, Lineto, A2-Type, Feliciano, and Google Fonts. I considered purchasing a typeface for my PDF document, but I realized I wasn’t yet confident enough in my knowledge of typography to make an informed choice. Instead, I decided to stick with research for now and use free fonts from Google Fonts. After spending quite a bit of time browsing different typefaces, I ultimately downloaded a few to experiment with. In my first test, I used Ubuntu for the titles and Noto Serif for the body text. I liked aspects of the Noto family, but I’m not sure I’ll stick with these choices for the entire project. This was more about exploring font pairings, testing different sizes, and seeing how they worked in different contexts. Typography experimentation is definitely not over yet, but I feel like I’m gaining a better understanding of what works.
After playing around with fonts, I moved on to grids and margins. This part was especially challenging since I don’t have much experience with page layout. I tested different grid structures—an 8-column, 6-column, and 9-column grid. Ultimately, I found that the 6-column grid worked best for me. With margins and borders taken into account, the slightly larger grid gave me more room for text. I think I’ve settled on this structure, but I still want to adjust my margins, as they currently feel a bit too small.
Once I had a basic structure, I started placing random text, images, and numbers just to see how everything fit together. My first layout attempt felt too busy—there was too much happening, and I may have included more text than necessary.
For my second experiment, I played around with colour, introducing bold elements while keeping the black text. I like the idea of adding colour to my PDF, but I don’t think I chose the right shades or used them effectively. I took this version to my tutor for feedback, and the main critique was that the layout still felt too busy. He suggested keeping text aligned across the same number of grid columns to improve readability and balance.
