This week’s free InDesign FX video really takes me back in time. Way back to the days before I’d ever even used a computer, when I was first learning how to draw. My tools then were just a pencil, a piece of paper, and those “How To Draw” books. The greatest thing that I learned from those books was that a drawing of any subject can begin with the simplest of shapes. With an oval, I had the beginnings of a lion. With a triangle, I had the start of a rocket. In every case, the trick was to learn how to see the simple shapes hiding in a complex subject.

In this week’s video, I show how you can apply this same idea to drawing in InDesign by using the Shape tools and Pathfinder commands. To illustrate this idea, I create a precise gear shape using nothing more than a couple circles, a few triangles, and the Pathfinder Subtract command.

While you probably won’t find yourself drawing gears every day unless you need to render a lot of bicycle illustrations, the gear is great practice for recognizing how to create whatever shapes you need with Pathfinder commands.

I also demonstrate in the video how you can use InDesign Pathfinder commands to create design elements that fit together. In this case, two frames that follow the same curves to convey the sense of an ocean wave.

If you want to take this technique a step further, making cool shapes is not all you can do with the Pathfinder panel. You can also use it to solve a problem that occurs if you try to put text in a frame that has been transformed. Here, the text appears flipped, along with the frame that contains it.

This is a job for the Add command! Using the Add command, you can create a new, untransformed shape so the text displays correctly.

For lynda.com members, I also have another new video this week in the online training library called Transform Again Tips and Tricks. In that video I discuss how to use the Transform Sequence Again command to repeat a number of transformations and create effects like this awesome retro zoom effect.

See you here again in two weeks with another InDesign effect!

Tags: Drawing with InDesign, InDesign, InDesign FX

This entry is filed under Design, InDesign FX. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.