Newsletter

I decided to do this project of creating a newsletter with a partner. We decided to do this project in Quark. I completed the front of the newsletter, while she did the back. In our mock-up, we specifically planned where everything would be. For the most part, I complied with the original plan. In all, I only changed two things. The mock-up showed a picture centered in the middle of the text. I placed the picture in the bottom right corner. I also changed the background. I thought that adding a curtain at a low opacity would look better than just white space with black text on it, so we both added the curtain. I added each segment of text by creating a text box and then selecting the Content Tool. Once the text was in, I changed the fonts to be more readable and visually appealing. The main font was Bell MT. We chose this font because our text said that serif fonts are more readable in long paragraphs than sans serif fonts. For the headings, we wanted to use a spooky font to fit in with the theme. We chose Lucida Blackletter for this reason. I placed the pre-made banner across the top of the document by creating an image box and selecting File → Insert Picture. To have the image fit perfectly, I resized it in Adobe Photoshop by doing Image → Image Size, and making it to fit the width of the document. I made the left column of the newsletter black to create a separation of the text. I put the image of the curtain through Photoshop. In Photoshop, I cropped out the part that I wanted. I copied it to a new document, resized the image, and deleted the white background. When it was the right size and on a transparent background, I changed the opacity to 52%. In retrospect, I wish I had left it a little darker. It appeared much darker on the computer screen than when it was printed. I added this image to the newsletter in the same way as the previous images. With the picture of the graveyard, I manipulated this photo to be black and white through Photoshop. After the manipulation, I resized it and added it to the document.

To kern my titles, I used Styles → Kern. I did this for the title of the newsletter. I did not use leading in this newsletter, but in figuring out the settings I found that if I wanted to do this, I would click Styles → Leading, and adjust the percentages. As for widows and orphans, I had a hard time styling the document so that no words were left alone on the last line. The best possible situation allowed for two words, one on the second paragraph and one on the last, to be left alone. If I extended the document any longer it did not fit on the page, and if I extended the document sideways I was left with hyphenations and more widows and orphans than before. My text wrap takes place in the last paragraph around the graveyard photo. Originally, the graveyard photo was in the center. I had a hard time creating the text wrap. I found the wrap option on the text toolbox, but for some reason it would not work with two separate columns. I tried to combine it to one column with two text boxes, and this did still not work. After many trials, I decided to make the text a single text box and move the picture to the bottom right. The location of the picture was visually appealing, so I left it in its place. I read in the assigned book to never indent a paragraph when there are spaces between the paragraphs. Because I added spaces between the paragraphs, I chose not to indent my paragraphs. Overall, I was impressed by the overall aesthetic appeal of the newsletter.