T-shirt for Orphaned Animals

When Bucky was young screech owl he was plucked from his nest in the wild to become someone’s pet. Fortunately his captor was soon discovered and fined for his irresponsible and illegal actions.
Bucky never learned how to hunt and survive in the wild, and must rely on humans for his food and protection. He now lives at the Animal Rescue League’s Wildlife Center in Verona.
As an active volunteer, I wanted to help raise awareness and support for orphaned animals. I created a t-shirt design with Bucky on the front.
The shirts were so popular that the other volunteers at the Center purchased over half of the shirts! At the “Baby Shower” fundraiser event, this March, the shirts almost sold out. Learn more about the Wildlife Center or Screech Owls.

Literary Addition

Most of the posts thus far have been about design and the technicalities of the Adobe programs. I find blogs of this sort very useful when I can't find the shortcut in the program itself. I want to add to the database of information, help others, and make a contribution to the community that I find effective: user blogs.
However, I'd like to take a turn from the current path of tutorials, and dive into something deeper. I'd like to interject book critiques into this blog. I've thought about creating a new blog entirely, however, since books and literature are considered art, I feel that they have a place on this post also. Not only can a you find out about aligning decimals in InDesign, but you may also scroll past a book review that grabs your attention.

Many times we become sucked into our jobs and don't visit ideas outside our field. This comes back to my older post "Specialization vs Globalization. Sometimes creative blocks can be solved by inspiration from unlikely sources. In the past, I've been spurred into creativity by puddles of water, the seatbelt beep in my car, and wafting cat hair in my livingroom. Taking a look outside of our everyday "creative job" and looking into unrelated or other threads of creativity can often help kick start our sluggish days.

Flash ActionScript Resource

I have found this dictionary to be a resourceful tool for Flash.

Flash ActionScript Dictionary

If you need a refresher for Flash's syntax, this comprehensive list provides symbolic operators and ActionScript elements. Listed under each entry there are examples for how to use them.

Tables in InDesign

If you have ever created a table in InDesign, you know there can be some nuances about the table.
First, the "text box" can be smaller or larger than the table, and all of the content will still display correctly. However, if the cell size is too small to fit all the text in, then the text will be cut off.

Coming back to my main point: the "Tab" key within a table.
If you have a table and press the "Tab" key, then it brings you to the next cell. What if you want to create a tab WITHIN that cell?
Here's how:
Option+Tab

Here's the Tutorial:
Create a table in InDesign.
1) Type your information. Press the "Tab" key to separate your left column from the right.



2) Select the text.


3) Open the "Convert to Table" palette (Table>Convert Text to Table)

4) A pop up box will appear. It will contain the information for converting your text to a table.
The defaults will separate the columns by tabs, and the rows by paragraphs. This is what we want.



5) Press "OK". You now have a 2 row table with the days in separate columns.


6) Now I want to add ingredients to my menu, and I want them to be indented with the "Tab" key. I want to type in my pizza ingredients.


7) Set a tab



8) Press Option+Tab to indent the word cheese. If you press just "Tab", your cursor will move to the next box.

Setting Adobe shortcuts

Shortcuts are a lifesaver.
However, the keystroke presets vary among all of the Adobe programs.
For example cmd+F is "Find" in InDesign. It is "Paste in Front" in Illustrator. This becomes very confusing if you frequently use both programs. I find myself with the "Find Text" dialogue box when I really want to paste an object on top.
If you use many Adobe programs, it is useful to have all of your commands be universal.

Use a bit of discretion when reassigning all of your shortcuts; there are several functions that are more important than others, depending on the program. So if you choose an operation to be universal, make sure that it is truly saving you time in all the programs.

Here's how to set your own shortcuts:
1) In ANY Adobe program go to Edit>Keyboard Shortcuts




2) You will see a new window with an overwhelming number of options.
To simply define a single action, click on the "Product Area" drop-down box.




3) In this example I will be changing the "Save As" function.
This is particular function is located under "File Menu".



4) Highlight the "Save As" command.


5) You will see the current preset shortcut(if one is not defined, this will be blank).
You can click the "Remove" button to remove it, or proceed to Step 6 to find out how to redefine the shortcut.




6) With the "New Shortcut" box selected, press the new keystrokes that you would like to use.
If you would like to assign them to a particular keystroke set, click on the "Context" dropdown box. Otherwise, the simpler way is to click the "Assign" button.
You have now successfully assigned a new keyboard shortcut!


Some key ones that I use often, on all of my Adobe programs are:
Save: cmd S
Export: cmd E
Place: cmd D
Zoom in: cmd +
Zoom out: cmd -
Zoom 100%: cmd 0


For the full list of shortcuts:
Adobe Indesign CS4
Adobe Photoshop CS4
Adobe Illustrator CS4