Indesign - Making thumbnails - Lynda
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Before you sit down at your computer and start designing, it's a good idea to
make some thumbnail sketches. Some graphic designers draw elaborate and
detailed thumbnails that are things of beauty. I'm not one of those people.
My thumbnails are hastily drawn, almost child-like and won't mean anything to
anyone but me. But that's okay, because I don't make them to show to other people.
I make them solely to clarify my own thoughts, to give me a road map of
where I'm going. It's tempting to skip this stage and start
trying to work things out on the computer, but this can waste a lot of
time. No matter how fast you are in Photoshop or InDesign. Chances are you will
end up tinkering, moving an element a few pixels this way or that way, scaling
an image of bit bigger or a bit smaller, working on an idea that no matter
how much you refine it is ultimately just a bad idea. And before you know it, several
hours have gone by and you have achieved nothing.
Making thumbnails can help you weed out the bad ideas from those that have some
merit and it's only these potentially good ideas that you need to pursue when
you sit down with computer and software. So before you even turn on your machine,
pick up pencil and paper and sketch some thumbnails. It will save you
a lot of time and frustration and ultimately produce a better design.
