Learning on the run; a crash course in Photoshop and InDesign

Never a dull day in the office here at POD, and that’s how I found myself taking a crash course in Adobe CC as the actual designer across from me was dealing out keyboard shortcuts and rattling off instructions that I couldn’t translate into Madison-talk…

But, here we are. A bunch of YouTube tutorials, google searches & mindless stares into the computer screen willing it to just fill that damn rectangle with colour and I’ve come a long way.

Strangely enough, it has just become another language to understand, if you know the rules, the rest kind of follows easily- KIND OF. However drawing lines, well let’s just say that one has been lost in translation! (Amongst a whole lot of other stuff- like gradients how do they work?) Now I know all kinds of nifty things and I can make all sorts of changes to files without having to break open pdfs and edit them.

But then I watch an actual graphic designer whiz through something that could potentially take me half a day and I know my efforts are better spent curating witty captions and events surrounding sports matches!

Alas, I’ll persevere and even edited a vector image that by some wicked sorcery was linked as an asset(?) in a Photoshop file! Who knew!

I can now successfully say I can do a few (very, very) simple things and I’ve got three tricks for all of you budding designers:

1. Take your time. Slow and steady definitely wins this race!

2. KISS- Keep it simple, stupid!

3. Leave it to the professionals (unless like me, you are suddenly a quasi-professional)