Project Life : Week 5 / How and Why I Use InDesign for PL

I had a super boring, snowed-in week, but such is life sometimes. Nonetheless, I still ended up loving this week's spread. I focused on just 7 4x6" photos, and filled the middle row with random cards and journaling. It's probably an approach I'll continue with moving forward, and then if I happen to have more photos for that week, they can migrate to the middle row.

Speaking of moving forward, I'm likely going to combine weeks for February and only do 2 spreads for the month. The winter isn't exactly exciting around here, and while I like to have some "normal life" photos, it feels slightly boring after a while. All we have on the calendar is one wedding and Mark's birthday. As a bonus, that means my blog doesn't have to be so Project Life-centric, which hass probably been a bit overwhelming/boring/annoying for any of you who don't do the project.

PS- That scary photo of Mark depicts not his side job as a burglar, but how he dressed to commute to work in -15°F temperatures (he walks to the train and to work everyday). I'd love to have seen how other people on the street reacted to his somewhat creeper attire ;)

Items used: Midnight Edition Core Kit, Photo Pocket Pages variety pack, generic black ink pad, Canon Selphy printer, gold doily (opposite side used) from Kelly Purkey's December Daily 2012 kit, vellum paper, "You Are Here stamp" and quote card via Elise Blaha Cripe.

Custom Touches: The weekly title uses paper from the "You are My Fave" digital paper pack by Paislee Press. I created the floral and stripe card by cutting out some flowers from an old Papaya weekly planner. Like January, the monthly calendar card came from Oh The Lovely Things and was scaled down to fit the 3x4" pocket in Photoshop. Three cards contain a vellum overlay with text printed on top.

If you're interested in reading about why and how I use InDesign for Project Life, pleas scroll down...



How & Why I Use InDesign

A few weeks ago, I mentioned that I switched from working in Photoshop for my weekly spreads to using InDesign, and I had a few people express interest in the how and why. Rather than write up a separate post about it and clutter the blog with more Project Life content, I thought I'd include a few thoughts down here.

Since I am taking a hybrid approach to Project Life, using a mix of digital elements, typed text, and photos, InDesign is a natural tool to visualize my weekly spreads, and then print and add any physical elements. InDesign was created for the purpose of page layout (think: brochures, advertisements, magazines, etc), whereas Photoshop's main purpose is photo editing, so I find InDesign far easier to work with than Photoshop for layout. I do still use Photoshop to edit my photos-- mainly getting rid of imperfections/distractions and adding an action (which is basically equivalent to an Instagram filter). 

I agree with everything Pink Ronnie wrote about InDesign in this post. In a former life I was also a print designer, so I am already very fluent with InDesign, and I know a lot of keyboard shortcuts that makes the Project Life layout process very quick. I think it's quite easy to learn the basics, though, so if you have access to the program and the desire to learn I highly recommend it, especially if you are interested in creating your own photobooks or going hybrid/digital with Project Life at any point.

I generally work on my weekly Project Life spread throughout the whole week in tiny chunks of time. This means I import photos from my camera on several occasions, often when I have other photos on my camera that I need for blog posts.

Like Ronnie, I started with a template in InDesign-- it looked just like a page protector, with correctly-sized individual blank spaces where the photos and cards go (basically like this, but created in InDesign). Whenever I import photos from my camera and have a few minutes, I'll glance through the photos and start to place them into the template layout. This allows me to quickly visualize how my photos look together and what placement looks best. I'm SUPER visual, so I really need this overview of my spread. As the week goes on, I always have a good idea of how many blank spaces I have to fill and how many more photos I need. I obviously leave some places blank where I know I'll add a journaling card from my PL kit.

At the end of the week when I have the layout filled in, I will quickly edit the 5-10 specific photos I've chosen by opening them in Photoshop-- brightening/color correcting, removing spots, and adding an action. These are certainly optional steps; if you've taken a good photo in the first place, you shouldn't need to edit it too much. Then I update my InDesign layout with the edited photo. If I want text on my photo, I'll add it at this point in a text box on top of the image.

When I'm ready to print, I open a new temporary document sized at 6x4" (the correct size for my printer), and then copy each 6x4" image in my Project Life layout (or two 3x4" image side by side), paste it into this new document, and print. Then I delete the image I just printed and copy and paste the next image for printing. And repeat. Boom, boom, done. It usually takes me about 5-10 minutes to print at the most. 

When I'm ready for the next week, I can just duplicate the previous week's spread if I know I won't be changing too much, or I can add a fresh, blank template spread to fill in. Since InDesign is made for the design of multiple page documents, you keep all your spreads in one working file (as opposed to Photoshop, where you'd work on one very large file at a time and need to save each one individually). If you were doing an entirely digital Project Life, you'd be able to neatly build this single file week after week and then print it as a photobook at the end of the year.

I hope this helped give some insight into how I use InDesign for Project Life. If you have any questions please feel free to ask! I actually taught InDesign and Photoshop for three years when I was in college and graduate school (and I created the InDesign curriculum to be taught to undergraduates at my grad school), so I am more than happy to answer any questions you may have!

Update:
I thought I'd link to a few resources if you'd like some hands-on learning with InDesign!

• Skillshare offers a "Learn InDesign: Layout, Type, and Images" taught by designer Anna Ditmeyer for $19, which would be a great intro into the program. And you can get $10 off your first class if you sign up through my referral link. I've taken two Skillshare classes before and enjoyed them both!

• Nicole's Classes offers a 4-week, online "InDesign 101" course, which I'd assume would be slightly more in depth, though I don't have any personal experience with Nicole's Classes.