Adobe InDesign for Beginners

Learn how to use the software’s key features to create professional standard designs from scratch.

• About InDesign
• How to Install and Setup InDesign
• Tools
• Workspace, Menu and Window
• Document Setup
• Beginning to Design - Practice
• Understanding Letters, Words and Sentences
• Using the Type Tool
• Character
• Using Typefaces
• Paragraph
• Scaling Type
• Working with Text Threads
• Working with Text Wrap
• Working with Paragraph and Character Styles
• Working with Tables
• Designing with Words - Practice
• Working with Photographs and Bitmap Images
• Adding Images
• Understanding Image Resolution
• Scaling images (Increasing and Decreasing)
• Working with Vector Shapes
• Pathfinder
• Aligning
• Working with Links
• Using the Rectangle Frame Tool
• Designing with Images - Practice
• Object Transformation
• Frame Fitting Options
• Effects
• Text Frame Options
• CMYK and RGB
• Fills and Strokes
• Swatches
• Gradient
• Designing with Objects and Colours - Practice
• Layout: Pages
• Guide Creation
• Margins and Columns
• Working with Layers
• Working with a Baseline Grid
• Organising Pages and Spreads
• Working with Master Pages
• Working with Alternate Layouts
• Using Libraries
• Designing with Spaces - Practice
• Introducing Shortcuts
• Getting Familiar with Commonly Used Features
• Saving and Opening Documents
• Using InDesign to Work with Different Content
• New Workspace
• View
• Being Organised when Designing with InDesign
• Designing with Features - Practice
• Using Bleed and Slug
• Check Spelling
• Find / Change
• Checking Documents with Preflight
• Hyperlinks
• Packaging
• Export
• Designing a Project - Practice

When working with typography, editorial design, and branding, Adobe InDesign is a versatile and efficient software choice to produce creative visual content across different media.

In this 7-part Domestika Basics, lecturer and graphic designer Jamie Sanchez Hearn teaches you all you need to know about InDesign, showing you how to use the range of tools available to create stunning visuals without any previous design experience.

Start the first course by getting to know Jamie and seeing what you’re about to learn in his Basics course. Then, set up the software and go through its interface to familiarize yourself with the workspace, seeing the many ways it is used in graphic design.

Move onto typography, and all text-related features in the second course, an area that Jamie is most passionate about. Learn about typography concepts, how to master paragraphs layouts, and play with different conceptual ideas related to words and sentences by using the text editing tools.

In the third course, see how to add external content such as images, vectors, and more. Learn how to import them, going through scale, and seeing how to edit them within your document.

Next, learn how to transform objects and how to use color correctly, learning about the difference between RGB and CMYK, and more.

Go through the layout specifics in the fifth course, seeing how space can work favorably to your design, and how to organize your work using page numbers, columns, and more.

For the sixth course, go through all the shortcuts and functions to work more efficiently, seeing how to set up different workspaces, and more.

Finally, in the last course, learn how to save and export your work, going through all the different file formats and their specifics.

By the end of the course, you will have learned how to use Adobe InDesign in a professional way, going through the basics of design and applying it to your own project: creating professional content for online and print media.

Technical requirements

⦁ A computer with Windows 7 or macOS 10.12 Sierra (or higher).
⦁ Adobe InDesign CC 2014 or higher (you can buy it or download the 7-day trial version on the Adobe website).