Newsletter+Reflection

A reflection on my newsletter “DTP Trends”, created for EDLD 5366, December, 2010:

This assignment was a three page digital newsletter which I created in Adobe InDesign CS4 on a six column by four row grid with three pica margins. I formatted it in landscape format because most digital displays are still landscape, and chose the theme of digital publishing because of its relevence and general interest, despite the decline in desktop publishing courses in general (“Oh, desktop publishing—that’s so nineties!”). The opening story, playfully entitled //“Look Ma, No Trees!”// was concerned with the transition of publishing to a non-paper format, digitally created and distributed. The second page had a story dedicated to typography, observing the curious inversion of the serif/sans serif convention in headlines and body text for online publishing, plus a sidebar displaying the six major typographic styles. The third page was a sort of odds and ends page with three small stories and a big color picture. I really felt that the last page wasn’t quite completed, but as I was working (in the grand publication tradition) on deadline, it went to press “as is.” I regret not making it four pages, as I’d stumbled across a translation of “Lorem Ipsum” (Cicero’s discussion of the rational pursuit of pleasure and avoidance of pain) that I would have liked to share, had I started earlier and not felt so rushed. **(1)**

A disclosure seems in order here: I wrote, edited, typeset (with Aldus Pagemaker), and distributed a Vice President’s newsletter for several years when I worked as an AV and computer support specialist for a state university satellite campus in the nineties **(2)**. The VP’s column was always the lead story, and I always struggled with editing it down to make room for actual news stories. I tended to place stories chronologically—what happened last month preceding what’s coming up—rather than importance, as the various departments were always jealous of each other’s prominence in any arena. This class’s readings pointed out, quite rightly, that one places the most important story first, a practice I could never observe until now. My initial reluctance to use such a big banner was, I realize, based on thinking in terms of limited space on a paper page—it doesn’t cost any more to add pages to a digital publication, and it doesn’t have to be an even number of pages either. In fact, the whole experience of publishing digitally felt really liberating, and, had I enough to say, I’d digitally publish a newsletter on a regular basis. A further disclosure: I have taught Desktop Publishing as a Technology class using Adobe software, including InDesign, Illustrator, and Photoshop for six years. **(3)**

The opportunity for learning and interacting with colleagues was slim to nonexistent on this project. Every student wrote and published his or her own newsletter, designed his or her own logo, and linked to his or her own animation. I benefitted not from a learning community, but from the readings and from my own experience.

**(1) Lorem Ipsum: Section 1.10.32 & 33 of "de Finibus Bonorum et Malorum", written by Cicero in 45 BC from a 1914 translation by H. Rackham ** **(2) //The Monthly Monitor//, Texas Woman’s University Health Science Center at Dallas, October 1992 through December, 2000. ** **(3) Lloyd V. Berkner High School, Richardson ISD, Richardson, TX **