As part of the GPA Yearbook class (now changed to “Graphic Design”), one of our jobs was to create a fairly regular newsletter to send out via email to the students’ parents. We tried to make one per month and will continue to do so for as long as I teach that class.
I had also previously helped students create their own newsletter in Computer A (learning Microsoft Office) in 2014. We used MS Publisher for that design.
This year, I had the students work through a variety of different programs to get a feel for each one and how they can all be used for graphic design:
- MS Publisher – originally taught in Spring 2014
- Canva.com – for posters and simple designs
- Google Docs & MS Word – 1st newsletter (March 2016)
- Google Slides & MS Publisher – infographic designs
- Adobe InDesign – all the remaining newsletters and Yearbook
You can see the cover designs and a spread for each newsletter in the following screenshot from the Newsletter website:
Visit http://gpa.justkeeplearning.xyz/yearbook and click on the “Newsletters” tab to be able to view the designs or download them.
Inspiration
Inspiration for the final April/June 2016 cover page came from a newsletter cover I found from London Business Forum:
I led the student through the process of creating the newsletter design from the ground up in Adobe InDesign using:
- font styles,
- color palettes,
- guidelines and layout techniques,
- and content frames (all things we’d previously studied in the class).
Then, I provided them with a pre-made template file (in case they had any mistakes in their work) to put together the June 2016 newsletter.