Skip to main content

Character and Paragraph Styles

Lesson 8 from: InDesign Typesetting: Design a Restaurant Menu

Michael Stinson

Character and Paragraph Styles

Lesson 8 from: InDesign Typesetting: Design a Restaurant Menu

Michael Stinson

buy this class

$00

$00
Sale Ends Soon!

starting under

$13/month*

Unlock this classplus 2200+ more >

Lesson Info

8. Character and Paragraph Styles

Lesson Info

Character and Paragraph Styles

Okay, everyone, we did our test print, and I just wanted to look at this real quick. I always try to prove what I'm doing for print with a print instead of looking at the screen or a pdf, because you always want to prove a job in its own environment. So in this case, I want to look to see what the the the diner is going to be reading and what their experience is going to be. So I'm trying to figure that out. So in this case, I'm trying to assess in this print how my layout in my chunking of content is working out. I still have some room down here at the bottom, so I'm e one of flush things out and move them around, so my two thirds might be adjusted a little bit, so I can pull this down and pull these down and get my spacing to even out around around the around the edges as well. Well, I'm also noticing is that the typeface that I put in here just for now, just to create a separation and content from dish two ingredients is I'm noticing the counters, air closing and it's, making it har...

d to read those those, uh, dishes, so I'm going to definitely change the typeface for the emphasis of the dishes and prices where it can be all right a little bit easier because they're becoming a little bit filled in and then I'm starting to notice that you know what, the design of this this brand and this this is french menu and then it's going to be a little bit more fun and eclectic? I'm starting to think of, you know, uh, you know, header, typefaces or display typhus is that I can use to create a little bit mohr eclectic feeling in this they may not even be the same let's say, so I'm going toe uh, actually cute that in this next segment here and see if we get farther along, I'll do another print and take another check and then we'll go to color from there, okay? So here's, where I wass and so now like I was talking about with with everything, I still want to work on my my lay out a bit and start to pace things out as faras spacing, so I'm pulling this I try to get out of the habit of pulling my cells too much. I'm a numbers guy, so I'm trying to see how deep this is to make it in a relationship to the one below it, so I'm going to use the distance of thirty pikers and then work backwards maybe two twenty seven pikus and just tow to give it some room twenty eight so I will typically type in numbers rather than drag things that's just the way I work because it's all about proportion on the page everything should be connected in the typography world everything is a relative measurement right? So you want to keep the elements in relative relationship with one another okay, so I try to select things and then just type in numbers so I know what they are and um and keep things even if you will and of course these air going to adjust but I want to see where I'm at this far is my my spacing on everything see fourteen where we go for now okay, so the other thing I want to do too is um it looks like I have plenty of space here and some of this on decisions I'm making like this if you if you select all the copy and I'm hitting command a or hit command uh selects the content if I hit command um question mark I get the entire cell and appear you khun again align that to this cell you have center alignment vertical lineman bottom and then you can flush it out, which I don't usually use because it disrupts the rhythm of the leading and the type around the page so for now I'm going to use um centered for now but what I want to do is I'm gonna cut this content out and I'm gonna subdivide this cell again horizontally, I might do it twice, and what I want is I want to center section or I'm gonna put my content so emerge those two cells and put my content back in there and then I want to make these top portions, you know, the same depth and it's going to mess with the depth of this, of course, but I want to see what we what we get here because I have and idea to like you doing here, this is for in the bottom ones force so it's centered and then I can select the center portion it should spread this out evenly. So if I make this taller now it starts to even it up. But I got my top and bottom space even so I could do that. So I'm noticing where my space is going to be here, because for now, let's say I'm gonna put type in here maybe it's all cap just to emphasize that they were going to be an ornament in here, maybe or you can put a box in there for now, that might be a better idea is just to again with layout you just want to practice using, you know, say, I'm just going to I know my ornaments air going in there, okay? And I want to do the same thing for this one over here so I may want to close up the space a little bit again. I'm gonna emphasised de emphasize or we emphasized these days and prices and all this I keep seeing this shift a little bit what I was talking about when I was talking about the type of here if you look at this and I go back to looking at this bold typeface here as I zoom out the counters which are the the empty portions of the characters start to merge together and it becomes even at this this level you could see they're hard to read. And so if I zoom in, you could see how small that counter of the a is. So I will really want to take notice of that of how the reader might have a difficulty reading that okay also noticed this this letting was jumping around a bit. So I want to make sure that my character styles that it's. Even so, my dish is eighteen and my prices twelve and a half. So I might want to make sure that those air are on the same page as far as letting so spreading it out. I may want to make them actually twelve and a half and the dish twelve and a half, so I want to make sure my leading is consistent and I know my other lendings and my other cells or twelve I'm going to go back and make these twelve so they're consistent consistency is key here, so I always want to know what my numbers are that's what I've always tried to practice so now I've got all this space again just like the other one, so I want to kind of do the same thing I did hear and select my cell as soon as you can see I have plenty of room I'll put in the centre I'll cut this out, I'll select the cell I'll support to sell horizontally I think here we go sauce like the two middle ones merged that, but the content back in the depth of this one was for so I'll make this one for now with sells four tables what's cool is is if they're the same height in with you can select the whole cell copy it and cisco select the empty cell here and pasted on anall duplicated that's a time saving thing with sup with that tables as well. So that makes you know quick measure of things as well. So I'm gonna extend this and we will push everything out just to get it going and see as I'm working down the page here, okay? So for now and we'll fix this spacing when we get to it, this is well could be emphasize a little bit differently as well maybe um so I may try to um one of the layout tools that I learned in the beginning was to compose and triangles and so if I look at this is a bird's eye view this content centered this one centered in this and senate I'm working in a triangle it keeps the eye within the page that's one of those composition techniques I learned as a young designer and then the other kind of two and three and four kind of do the same thing it kind of working to try and get their way and they're flush left with tabs so that's kind of a composition thing that I learned early on um so with that I mean when I try maybe some brackets on the sides here so I want to do the opposite of a top and bottom and maybe use a left and right here I also maybe one uh put some space are some rose in between these so if I select this whole row under table who you go insert row you know give you options on how many above and if I select us aiken haven't even space but maybe two pikers between them so that way if I you know move this all the way up and let's say I made this thirty six I still have uneven space here so I might want to do the same thing with this here if I look at this distance here and I add, I insert a row here above, then I can make out the same distance, so by using that, knowing the numbers, I'm keeping consistency in my spacing, right? So I want I want I always try to do that for this. I want this this shorter let's say we try nineteen here and so you know it depending on this, these might get smaller, maybe three. This is where some of the spatial massaging happens that I'm doing right now, okay, that's might have to get a little smaller and have a detail here I have to mess with, too when we get to it. Um, this is another thing you can address right now is that I've got two measures of emphasis here. Now the chef used brackets just emphasis emphasize this content that I don't necessarily have to use those because I've got a box already and my box might become actually more stylized. Uh, something similar too. Maybe, you know, a different kind of border, you know, like a traditional one, maybe that's the thing about this, the way this menu is going to probably end up is is ah, it's going to be a mix of french contemporary let's say so, um, you're gonna have more typefaces, but the main typefaces sarah, if it's a little more traditional this border here's a little more traditional but the thai faces in it a little more eclectic so it's going to have that kind of old and new balance for for it right, which is what we're after so we may even for this see this were in this menu here I believe maybe just stick to the traditional plate here depending this looks like it has a baseline shift in it but I might want to dress now or it's just been a baseline shift for some reason this year oid out so they're on the same baseline that's one thing a thing or two about putting type in a box this is one thing to you see how the spacing is off vertically there's more appear and more down here and you always want to look at the x height line so when you put it type in boxes it's always better you know for the spacing to make it all cap because then if you go to your text in set poor in this case it's a it's a regular text box you can always just raise it until it's centered vertically but this keeps the spacing even topping bottom and you don't have that, you know excite problem there and with the box height I'm going to go back and make this you know, I mean it even this number out at two pikers so I know the height of that um I'm gonna go ahead and you know, for now we're going to look at some different type faces to go with this uh harriet it's a little bit better? Um I started with the appetizers here so ingredients is the typeface I'm working with it's harriet and so what? Typeface pairing a surf and sand surf guys, one of the key things that I've learned is try to get the excites to match first because again it's about harmony on the page you have two sides of families on the other side of the tracks of the town and you want to try to get them close to each other in harmony of working with one another. So for my for my dish um I'm going to use something that I know already works well for time's sake here um and one of the other key things is is excited but also character with and then the third thing is designer right now I have two different designers through harriet and knock out harry it is okay type that's the foundry and knock out as you know is hoffler so um I may want to go back to okay type to match up a sand surf to that designer designed because as the same mentality is a serif to design before so his sensor if did he has that ok is alright sands it's rather large family it's got lots of weights so I had that problem with you know um the counters closing so I may just wanna try media for now but that's a scene like enough emphasis so I can go toe bold and try that it still might not be enough or I might try black so it's really a call on that one on how much emphasis you're going to use and don't forget you still have color to work with which is in the back of my mind so right now I don't have a lot of separation like I did before the release you can read it better and you really have to print out make a call on that and maybe when we do our next black and white print will look at that but for now I'm going to change it to um all right sounds ah bold I believe it is yeah okay so then I can go ahead and change these you know as well since we're up here so the dishes here and all right sands bold just to keep it simple and it's all cap and it's changing all the way through so I go down here to my firm aj as well and changed the dish too all right soon's bold okay now, if I want those to connect, if I make this dish, uh, you know, based on something that connects it to it. So if I go back tio my entrees and base it on that dish, then when I change my my entrees, so I get on the same screen here, my entrees dish. If I decide to make it black, it should change this one down here to which it does. And it's, really efficient use character styles that way. So that connects everything and the entrees dish. I may want to it's connected to my appetizer dis so they're all going to change together now in one shot. Okay, I may want to make this one the dishes well, so it's a little heavier wind my box a bit. Okay, so starting to take shape now, and like I was saying, before, we may want to do something with the sides of this. I may want to bring in this content a little bit more from the edges so I can use my, um, paragraph c where I'm out here or is my tinnitus here, paragraph palate and just bring in the the wits of these two so it lengthens out a little bit, and I have more, uh, or I may want to put the prices below these just like in like I did appear ok here's another one that didn't change over here so I may want to do that just to keep everything connected and we're talking about place two sure let's say in the dish writes in place so this is knock out we would choose to all right stands bold and we want tio connected to this one so when one changes they all change this we may want to extend a little bit you maybe four this one got shorter for some reason this one I'm going to try to do another style here for the price may be or that is the price but maybe make these the subheds or I'm going to call it the days so these air different days I just do their oh I see this is the days days days and I put this above this because that's on the top I'm doing my character cells in order that they appear just to be extra you know for you okay so days days and I should have us which I d'oh this one I would extend a little bit more it looks like I'm coming off the end there extend that let's see where we're at birdseye view I keep checking in and out just to see how my space is working and it's looking pretty good so far so now that I've got that I might want to start you know, emphasizing you know this area that I wanted to down here so instead of top and bottom you know artwork I mean I want to do side to side so I could do the same thing I can cut this but this time I'm going to divide it vertically right vertically and I'm going to use these two in the middle and put my content back in there and so in here I'm going to do some kind of rocket just like these so I can turn these on their side and put them in here so I know that that's going to be like a little separation in part I may want to separate something here because this is pretty wide um so I may want to do the same thing here cut this but it vertically but it vertically maybe I just used these over here put the content in there and then in here I'm going to put artwork for a brocket so you notice I'm just using boxes for now and I'm just you know, I want to make sure I get in alignment going here this should align and all that okay um I mean, you need more space here so this may have to come over a little bit more but I'm looking ok with everything so for now let's see where we're at way want to start putting in you know, some of the headers now let's say just to get the type going I'm going to do that before I had artwork so it's type all decisions made first then artwork in color that's the way I've always worked and it's just one way of working but um so for the header I again have some pre determined typhus is that I've put in here and there are more eclectic so I'm gonna move my head or appear so this is the menu had and amusing gold bar for now okay because it should be the next thing you see after the main brand mark you don't want it so big and right now it might be a little too big because kind of competing with it right so I may take it down in size you know to eighteen might be a little bit better so should go one two year I should go one two right and then it should go right to this whatever this is gonna be so this is my third thing down so this header should stand on its own as well maybe it has a different feel so it's kind of eclectic and then so on down the page it goes and this would be next so this is our header for these and that looks to bigas well but these two are our main sections so they might be the same all right that's a slab I'm using equipped slap okay so what we're doing a collective menu like this we might end up with all these being the same with just the pull out as being different ones because I could really put these in as the same. So for now let's do that because generally you'd want to look at it this way like this just to see where you're at and obviously that's too big and we don't have to use these brackets here obviously that's too big so if I'm just dealing with size at this point this is now competing with that um my entree ahead or needs to be smaller so I'm gonna bring it down to fourteen and make this the entree head or now for for now so everything's the same now you have one, two, three one, two, three as far as its emphasis and where the eyes going? Ok, so then I can go back around and do my my style for each one which I was starting to d'oh and here I have a certain style down here for the from aj just kind of predetermined and as you add typefaces like this um now the headers air on their own level we've set up a system of all the body come the reading copy of just surf and sand saref so the reader knows the system okay now to get the eye to go around the page on its own toe look for particular things you could add more personality to your headlines k so place too sure maybe it's a cash I think is the name of that maybe there's these two stay the same then this goes back to you know it's header that it was before, but you want to make sure they fit no that's, not in this one area. Ok, so now you have a little bit more of that collective field but it's only in the headers your system still intact because you're going to add a little bit more collected to what you're going to put in a ce faras embellishments ok, so let's let's try to get our type situation ironed out first and I think I have a header here is well in the footer and just get that going for a header here, right? So, you know, it's got its own style, so that style the reader's eyes they're going to go to that when they're looking for the restaurant hours. Okay, so look at that up close, you know, we've got this kind of look going actually have to change this to toe my all right sands, which is here and connected to my other ones you want to connect that to my dish and entrees so they all change together, okay? You may even make the price is different if you if you wanted to add more style but it's not necessary at this point okay um so it's so it's a least get these headers you know working better so they work inside the frame here so ah this one is here so this one definitely needs to be smaller and I want to make sure it's on my twelve uh point letting scale here so I'm going to use maybe thirty over um thirty when you have something size is the same number as the lady once I called that's an old term you usually want to do it with um all caps right doing time you want to set something solid thirty over thirty is with all caps or in this case it could be negative right but it's still going to be divisible by common nominee of twelve so setting something solid where they're leading and type size of the same usually all caps um on trays here this one actually looks pretty good as far a size we leave these two the same this one needs to come down in size because not fitting so that's this one here my for march my cheeses so again the numbers that I'm choosing all right all right now for some reason it's nineteen you noticed the numbers that I'm choosing they're all kind of working together right? This is set solid or negative actually so I may want to keep this on the fifteen so fifteen, twelve, twenty four there still are working together aegis will always want to have that mentality with typesetting and I'm not even really said watching my my alignment left to right on all these but my metalious there that's the main take ok, so I'm getting my type all worked out here to see our matt I still have problems here, so I mean, I want to go back two for this two fit go back to my ingredients because I have a chef in here is well, I'm I better fit in there. Um, so selection of cheeses of the day, they want to return that with a glass of and then put the title below that. Okay, so this all fits in there. Now I just gotta find a place for the chef here, and it might be over here in this content and this has got yes, what might be down here if I can fit it in with this? Or it could be done at the bottom of this. So I may want to pull this out of this, because now I'm looking at my total lines this is ending here, this is close to ending there, so I'm probably good to balance out usually always want your content, it to end at the same point across the board so fire to draw a line here and this is kind of good typesetting practices to make sure that they end on the bottom line and they're pretty close and I can work that out that's a good practice to have you don't want this undulating if you could control it ok, so I have that there and I might just she was a different emphasis for this all right, this is flushed left I usually wanted if I gotta flush left system there I want to stick to that one for this uh, situation but I'm a um for this footer I'm going to try to make it subhead but I might alter that sub head and make it ah bold italic let's say just so it has another emphasis on it but on the twelve baseline grid and I could always add something in here if I wanted to emphasize that I could put, you know, bars on both sides and center it that's another kind of stylistic decision um this rag is kind of weird so I want to get into that let's just finish this offer now get the dish going so well it looks like I have the opposite here so this is the dish and so I need to make this a little smaller type size emphasis there so maybe in half from britain it's still in the old ones harmonies seven over twelve or now and that's not working why isn't that changing because I'm in the wrong one I mean my for marsh so my dish is here and I may want eight over twelve start being half over twelve okay and then my ingredients are prices here I can use this well but it's ending up close to this bottom line but I may want to make that backwards actually do the ingredients as and then emphasize so the cheeses in the prices so I may wanna make the opposite again they're old style so for those to change those prices and make them since it's not really body copy anymore I'm not change this surprise and you chose that in here in your open type features to proportional lining different supreme proportional and tabular lining proportional is for the negative spacing in between the characters for like body copy tabular set up for accounting or decimals will line up and everything so it alters the spacing for for everything to line up in an accounting column that's the difference there so proportional line is what we want there so they're low larger and that can be found a little easier okay, so now my my type is kind of working out I could probably, you know, altered this space a bit in this space a bit so it fits som ina let me make this nine, and this nine. It's getting pretty close. Maybe make this six. There we go. But I'm always using the numbers that work are not, like seven and a half or anything like that, okay? And I can fix this a swell. So now this is a look to see what we have so let's get our our ornaments in. There are embellishments and see and do another test print, and we'll see where we're at.

Class Materials

Bonus Materials with Purchase

InDesign Project Files and Resources.zip

Ratings and Reviews

a Creativelive Student
 

InDesign is a program I use on occasion so this class has been great for a quick refresher on making it work for me. He keeps it clear and concise so it is easy to follow. Even if you are using a newer version of InDesign this class will help you.

Student Work

RELATED ARTICLES

RELATED ARTICLES