Classroom in A Book: Adobe Creative Suite
Classroom in A Book: Adobe Creative Suite
® ®
DESIGN PREMIUM
classroom in a book ®
Instructor Notes
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Adobe® Creative Suite® 4 Design Premium Classroom in a Book®
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Printed and bound in the United States of America
Book:
ISBN-13: 978-0-321-57391-9
ISBN-10: 0-321-57391-9
Instructor notes:
ISBN-13: 978-0-321-61924-7
ISBN-10: 0-321-61927-7
Instructor notes
Introduction
The Adobe® Creative Suite® 4 Design Premium Classroom in a Book® course
presentss tudents with tips, techniques, and solutions for using Adobe Creative
Suite 4 Design Premium. These Instructor Notes are intended to complement the
information in the Adobe Creative Suite 4 Design Premium Classroom in a Book.
The information is organized to follow the sequence of instruction in each lesson.
However, the notes are not intended to expand on each and every exercise but
rather to point out potential teaching opportunities not specifically covered in the
lesson or areas where students might easily be confused.
4 Instructor Notes
• Lesson 2 teaches how to use one of the many templates in InDesign to speed
up the process of designing a brochure. Again, Adobe Bridge is used to start the
lesson for file. Adobe Illustrator and Adobe Photoshop are then being used to
add text and graphics in a variety of file formats. The goal is to be able to prepare
documents for high quality print or/and add interactive elements for on-screen
viewing.
• Lesson 3 introduces the concept of planning and prototyping a website design in
Fireworks—complete with interactive links and rollover behaviors. The students
learn how to preview the pages in a standard web browser before developing the
finished website in Dreamweaver. Again, Adobe Bridge serves to help quickly
locate and preview the asset files.
Each exercise in this lesson builds on the preceding exercises. Since the lesson
is substantial, it may be a good idea to split it into two sessions: the first to
prototype the site in Adobe Fireworks, and the second part to implement the
site in Dreamweaver.
• Lesson 4 continues where Lesson 3 left off: It shows how to import the website
prototype created in Fireworks into a Flash document. This lesson is almost
certainly too involved to be completed in a single class session. (The same
applies to Lesson 5.) The students begin by creating a Flash document, and then
import the design created in Fireworks. This is followed by exercises that deal
with adding animation, defining rollover behaviors, and using ActionScript.
The students learn how to use ActionScript to control the behaviors of media
elements, and then test and publish their work.
• Lesson 5 is a stand-alone lesson, introducing Device Central and demonstrating
how the tight integration between Device Central and other Creative Suite 4
Design Premium component applications helps to streamline the mobile design
workflow. The students will be familiarized with Device Central's extensive
library of mobile device profiles, enabling them to quickly test the appearance
and behavior of mobile content on emulated devices—right on the desktop!
• Lesson 6 is another lesson that could be taught independently, as it deals with
various ways to share work and collaborate online. This lesson gives detailed
attention to Adobe Acrobat, which facilitates a range of review workflows. After
a quick introduction to different types of review, the students will learn how
to attach a PDF for an e-mail based review and how to deal with comments,
customize the appearance of document markup notes, collaborate in online
meetings, and initiate a server-based, shared review. They will also get an
overview of tracking and managing PDF reviews, and the possibilities for
protecting work.
Some of the exercises may be best assigned as homework, as your students will
need to have internet access with their own valid email and Acrobat accounts.
Getting Started
Before beginning Lesson 1, you should decide how to deal with the issues of soft-
ware installation and the copying of lesson files from the CIB CD to the students'
computers. You may wish to prepare Lessons folders for your students before the
first lesson begins, or work this procedure into the beginning of Lesson 1, together
with the creation of work folders and initial catalog files.
6 Instructor Notes
work live from a remote location. Lesson 6 will expand on Share My Screen and
other sharing options.
All the visual assets used in this book are linked, created as design elements for the
promotion of a fictional movie called Double Identity.
Scheduling
Before starting this lesson, it would be helpful if the students have read through the
first part of the book, which provides an excellent overview of the entire Creative
Suite 4 as well as its component applications. It also highlights the versatile work-
flows for multiple media, the commonality of interface, and new features of the
separate applications.
Questions
1 When does it make sense to use of ConnectNow with the Share My Screen
feature?
2 What kinds of libraries does Illustrator offer?
3 What are the advantages of working with multiple artboards?
Answers
1 Using ConnectNow with the Share My Screen feature is ideal when you wish
to collaborate remotely with others in real time. Sharing your screen has the
advantage that there's no need for the other participants to have the same
software, fonts, or even a copy of the file being reviewed. When you'd like to
provide training or demonstrate software actions, the immediacy of real-time
interaction with others is especially helpful. In addition, you have control over
both the content and pace of your presentation. You can even transfer the
8 Instructor Notes
control of your desktop to another attendee, which comes in very handy for truly
meaningful collaboration.
2 Illustrator offers four large libraries: The Brush Libraries, the Graphic Style
Libraries, the Swatch Libraries, and the Symbol Libraries.
3 In Illustrator you can create a single file containing up to 100 artboards of
varying sizes and display them any way you want — overlapping, side by side, or
stacked. This is very intuitive when working on a series of design variations or
separate design iterations intended for different applications. Artboards can be
saved, exported, and printed independently or together.
Note: You can use the Review Q&A at the end of the chapter to help you identify extra teaching
opportunities and discussion points.
Scheduling
For all lessons it is preferable that the students should have already read the first
section of the book—Part 1: Introducing the suite and its individual compo-
nents. The exercises in Lesson 1 are related to, but not essential for, the completion
of those in Lesson 2.
Lesson 2 is fairly involved, which is why it may be a good idea to split it into two
sessions. While the first session concentrates on the printed brochure including
the selection of a template and making numerous adjustments to customize the
template to suit the project at hand, the second session can expand on designing for
on-screen applications, with the attendant interactive possibilities.
Questions
1 What can you do if you can't seem to find certain menu items?
2 What is the white balance in a Raw format image?
Answers
1 InDesign lets you customize the visibility of menu items. Selecting a predefined
workspace may result in some menu items being hidden. If you can’t find the
item you’re looking for in a particular menu, choose Show All Menu Items at the
bottom of the menu, if available.
2 White balance reflects the composition of the color components in the light
source when an image was captured. The White Point is used as a calibration
benchmark to correctly interpret and render the color information recorded by
the camera's sensors.
3 To define a preflight profile, you need to choose Define Profile from the Preflight
panel menu or from the Preflight menu at the bottom of the document window.
Then, click the New Preflight Profile icon, enter a name for the profile, and then
click to select any combination of the following preflight settings: Links, Color,
Text, Images and Objects, or Document. Click OK to close the dialog box and
save all changes. Click OK to close the dialog box and save all changes.
Note: You can use the Review Q&A at the end of the chapter to help you identify extra teaching
opportunities and discussion points.
Scheduling
There are various approaches to building a website. Some may prefer to begin with
designing separate elements and assets, while others start with the overall layout
of the website. In this sense, the lesson doesn't necessarily require your students to
have already completed the previous lessons. However, Lessons 1, 2, and 3 do pro-
vide a good basis, in preparing related asset material for our hypothetical movie.
Planning a website
Stress the importance of the careful planning of a website. Prototyping the concept
in Fireworks for client approval of the basic site design makes the whole process of
creating a website so much more efficient. This section ends with previewing files
in Bridge, which is a good way to further familiarize the students with the use of
Bridge as the central hub in CS4.
Questions
1 If you need to change the setup of the document you're working on in Fireworks,
where can you adjust it?
2 What is a gradient mask?
3 What is a rich symbol?
Answers
1 In Fireworks, you can adjust the setup options for the document at any time
using the Property panel.
2 Compared to a path mask, which uses a path outline to block the view of
some portion of the underlying object, a gradient mask is more akin to a filter
or a screen. Consequently, objects show through in areas where the mask is
transparent or partially transparent.
3 A rich symbol is an editable design and interface component that can be used
and reused for website designs, interface prototypes, or any other graphic
composition.
Note: You can use the Review Q&A at the end of the chapter to help you identify extra teaching
opportunities and discussion points.
Scheduling
Although this chapter could be taught as a free-standing lesson, it would be better
for the student to have already completed the previous lessons—especially Lesson
3, where students prototyped the website. This provides a logical basis for Lesson 4,
where they will add interactive elements.
Lesson 4 is another complex session that may be better presented in two parts: the
first part ending with the animation of symbols, and the second part covering the
remainder of the lesson.
About Flash
After quickly explaining the general workflow for developing a Flash project, the
students have the opportunity to study a more complex sample document, before
beginning work on a simplified version in the exercises.
Questions
1 Can you describe the four behavior states for a button and name the frames?
2 What is an Alpha value, which can be specified from the Style menu under Color
effect?
3 Name at least two formats supported by Flash for publishing an animation.
Answers
1 The first frame is displayed in the normal state, the second frame on a mouse-
over event, the third frame when the button is clicked, and in the fourth frame
you can define the area that should react to the mouse events—which could be
smaller or larger than the button itself. The four frames are labeled Up, Over,
Down, and Hit respectably.
2 The Alpha value affects the opacity of the image. Leave the Alpha value at 100%,
or fully opaque. By defining a color effect and then setting a property keyframe
you can later create a color effect tween by changing the corresponding value in
the first keyframe. Remember: Pixels that are partly transparent in the original
image remain partly transparent even with an Alpha value of 100%.
3 You can export your animation in SWF file format for playback using the Flash
Player, create a complete web page for playback in a standard web browser, or
publish as a standalone AIR application for playback on your desktops.
Note: You can use the Review Q&A at the end of the chapter to help you identify extra teaching
opportunities and discussion points.
Questions
1 Which feature of Device Central could hugely increase your productivity when
ensuring a design will work on a range of mobile profiles?
2 Which different environments does the Emulator tab simulate to test the
performance of various media types?
3 In which library does your selected profile need to be in order to be used when
creating a new document?
Answers
1 When it comes to testing mobile content on several devices, the Automated
Testing panel enables you to quickly record, save, edit, and share test sequences.
When the testing is complete, the Log panel displays a detailed list of snapshots
captured and errors detected, so that problems or bugs can be identified easily.
2 In the Display panel of the Emulator tab you can choose the following
environments from the Reflections menu: None, Indoor, Outdoor, and Sunshine.
Note: You can use the Review Q&A at the end of the chapter to help you identify extra teaching
opportunities and discussion points.
Scheduling
Lesson 6 is another “stand-alone” lesson. The exercises build upon each other,
progressing from the more simple process of attaching PDF files for an email review
to the more complex skills of review tracking and management, and setting up an
online review.
Managing reviews
Here again the classroom situation may possibly be one without Internet access, or
where students cannot access separate Acrobat.com accounts or use valid email
accounts making it impossible to experience a full managed review that includes
the receipt and tracking of comments. However, your students can still explore the
Tracker, and understand how to initiate a shared review, and the simpler approval
workflow. Once more, these exercises might be better completed, or repeated at
home.
Note: Up to three people, including the host, can attend a ConnectNow meeting.
Questions
1 Name five things to do in case you encounter difficulties setting up or attending
an online meeting.
2 What is ConnectNow?
3 What are the advantages of the real-time online meeting?
Answers
1 Following this check list might help avoid such problems:
• Ensure that you are connected to the Internet.
• Check that your software and hardware meet the system requirements.
For a complete list, see www.adobe.com/go/acrobatconnect_systemreqs.
• Disable any pop-up blocker software.
• Clear the browser cache.
• Try connecting from another computer.
Note: You can use the Review Q&A at the end of the chapter to help you identify extra teaching
opportunities and discussion points.