HowToMakePostersUsingInkscape

Open Week -- How to Make Posters using Inkscape - Martin Owens -- Tue, Oct 12

   1 [16:46] <doctormo> Welcome to the Making Posters in Inkscape session, we've taken a bit of extra time because we need to do some prep work.
   2 [16:47] <doctormo> the first thing to do is to install inkscape, http://doctormo.org/install.pl?inkscape <- click there
   3 [16:48] <doctormo> One of the important parts of doing media work is organising yourself so you can find everything. Poster creation, like all publishing, is about bringing lots of existing elements together.
   4 [16:50] <doctormo> I'd like you to make a special folder to keep all your artworks in. Me I use ~/Graphics/
   5 [16:51] <ClassBot> There are 10 minutes remaining in the current session.
   6 === ChanServ changed the topic of #ubuntu-classroom to: Welcome to the Ubuntu Classroom - https://wiki.ubuntu.com/Classroom || Support in #ubuntu || Upcoming Schedule: http://is.gd/8rtIi || Questions in #ubuntu-classroom-chat || Event: Ubuntu Open Week - Current Session: How to Make Posters using Inkscape - Instructors: doctormo
   7 [16:51] <ClassBot> Logs for this session will be available at http://irclogs.ubuntu.com/2010/10/12/%23ubuntu-classroom.html following the conclusion of the session.
   8 [16:52] <doctormo> I'm going to give you a library of existing elements, I've tried my hardest to document the licensing where it's original or commissioned work. I'd like you to download, extract and store in your graphics folder. I store mine in ~/Graphics/Media
   9 [16:52] <doctormo> http://divajutta.com/doctormo/art/Media.tar.gz
  10 [16:52] <doctormo> This is a my precious media archive which all LoCo people, art and marketing people should download.
  11 [16:55] <doctormo> Once you have extracted your archive, I'd like you to open inkscape and get comfortable, open up your media directory too.
  12 [16:55] <doctormo> http://divajutta.com/doctormo/art/inkscape-setup.png
  13 [16:55] <doctormo> This is my work environment for making published media like posters.
  14 [16:58] <doctormo> If you've got that all setup, then congratulations your ready for the class. I'll be printing this back out at 12:00 for everyone who has joined since and if all you who are ready can help those who are not in chat, that would be great.
  15 [17:00] <doctormo> Welcome again to the Making Posters in Inkscape session, you will need to do some prep work to get ready. For everyone who has joined us since the hour.
  16 [17:01] <doctormo> The first thing to do is to install inkscape, http://doctormo.org/install.pl?inkscape <- click there
  17 [17:01] <doctormo> One of the important parts of doing media work is organising yourself so you can find everything. Poster creation, like all publishing, is about bringing lots of existing elements together.
  18 [17:01] <doctormo> I'd like you to make a special folder to keep all your artworks in. Me, I use ~/Graphics/
  19 [17:01] <doctormo> I'm going to give you a library of existing elements, I've tried my hardest to document the licensing where it's original or commissioned work.
  20 [17:01] <doctormo> http://divajutta.com/doctormo/art/Media.tar.gz <- I'd like you to download, extract and store in your graphics folder. I store mine in ~/Graphics/Media
  21 [17:01] <doctormo> Once you have extracted your archive, I'd like you to open inkscape and get comfortable, open up your media directory too.
  22 [17:01] <doctormo> http://divajutta.com/doctormo/art/inkscape-setup.png 11:55 <- Just like this
  23 [17:01] <doctormo> This is my work environment for making published media like posters.
  24 [17:01] <doctormo> If you've got that all setup, then congratulations your ready for the class.
  25 [17:02] <doctormo> I'll give you all another 3 minutes to do that, downloading the 7MB archive might take a second.
  26 [17:05] <doctormo> You can extract the archive by right clicking on it and selecting "Extract here"
  27 [17:05] <doctormo> You can have a look through the folders and see what's there, all fun stuff.
  28 [17:06] <doctormo> OK time to move on, don't worry if your still downloading, we'll be doing backgrounds first.
  29 [17:06] <doctormo> In your inkscape window, you'll have a canvas. It's important at this stage to get your canvas the right size and orentation.
  30 [17:06] <doctormo> File > Document Properties
  31 [17:07] <doctormo> In the Format selection, we're going to select Ledger/Tabloid which is two US Letter sheets stuck together. You can also use A3.
  32 [17:08] <doctormo> Where it says background, we're going to click on that and change the colour to pure white with no transparency.
  33 [17:09] <doctormo> Close that preferences window and go back tot he canvas.
  34 [17:09] <doctormo> Goto File > Save As and save your work, use the save button on the toolbar religiously.
  35 [17:10] <doctormo> Next we're going to make a square using the draw square tool
  36 [17:11] <doctormo> Make a square just less than the size of the canvas. Clicking on the fill/stroke properties we want to give this square a 4px black border and an orange fill, your choice on complexity.
  37 [17:13] <doctormo> http://divajutta.com/doctormo/art/Screenshot.png <- Like this
  38 [17:15] <doctormo> Next we're going to write a title on our poster, I like to have a collection of fonts as much as I like a collection of media.
  39 [17:15] <doctormo> I install ttf-aenigma to get access to a lot of interesting fonts and fill my ~/.fonts directory with downloaded ttf files.
  40 [17:16] <doctormo> http://doctormo.org/install.pl?ttf-aenigma
  41 [17:16] <doctormo> You may have to restart inkscape to see the new fonts.
  42 [17:18] <doctormo> Once you have some text, we'll want to drag over an Ubuntu logo, which should be in the Ubuntu media folder.
  43 [17:18] <doctormo> Like so: http://divajutta.com/doctormo/art/Screenshot-1.png
  44 [17:21] <doctormo> Drag over some other elements and place them in your poster, go with images that reflect the style you want to convay.
  45 [17:22] <doctormo> All these media elements are svg, so they're all editable and decomposable too.
  46 [17:22] <doctormo> At this point I'd like to download some new media to put in my directory
  47 [17:22] <doctormo> If it's something factual, like a flag, icon or brand I can use google to search wikimedia and type in "dell logo svg" for instance to get the svg.
  48 [17:23] <doctormo> Make sure that when downloading from wikimedia you download the svg and not the png.
  49 [17:24] <doctormo> For more creative works you can head over to http://openclipart.org and search the vast collections of works for svgs which fit your theme.
  50 [17:24] <doctormo> You can also take any of the works on spread Ubuntu, I limit myself to the svg works as they're the most flexible. http://spreadubuntu.neomenlo.org/
  51 [17:25] <doctormo> Spread Ubuntu is incidentally where you should upload your poster once it's done.
  52 [17:27] <doctormo> Once you've got all your downloadable elements together, next is the more creative part
  53 [17:27] <doctormo> designing
  54 [17:29] <doctormo> At this point we have to work a bit on Copyright. sorry guys!
  55 [17:29] <doctormo> I's important
  56 [17:29] <doctormo> For any pieces that you work on or that you download from openclipart (which are public domain) you don't need to worry at all.
  57 [17:30] <doctormo> For works you downloaded from elsewhere, you need to pay close attention to the license and abide by the rules.
  58 [17:30] <doctormo> A lot of the media I've given you is CC-BY-SA, so you're posters if they use those, will also need to be CC-BY-SA when you publish them.
  59 [17:30] <doctormo> You'll also need to credit the authors, so keep a record of them if you can.
  60 [17:31] <doctormo> Keeping a clean copyright workflow allows you a much better sense of security that your work isn't infringing on anything.
  61 [17:31] <doctormo> this is what I have so far -> http://divajutta.com/doctormo/art/Screenshot-2.png
  62 === JoeMaver1ckSett is now known as JoeMavericksett
  63 [17:32] <ClassBot> anneboleyn asked: What if I use some open-source stuff and some that are not free?
  64 [17:33] <doctormo> You have to license work from the original authors in ways that are compatible. It's not possible to legally combine non-free and share-alike works for instance.
  65 [17:33] <doctormo> If in doubt, make your own and license freely.
  66 [17:36] <ClassBot> anneboleyn asked: Where can I get help in doing that (getting my own license)?
  67 [17:37] <doctormo> You can get your own license from http://creativecommons.org/licenses/ you can of course always make your own, but that's legally unsure.
  68 [17:38] <doctormo> OK so now if you've got something worthwhile and you've saved it.
  69 [17:38] <doctormo> You'll need to know how to print it so it comes out like you expect.
  70 [17:38] <doctormo> Make sure at this point to save your poster.
  71 [17:39] <doctormo> You can save an SVG in inkscape as a PDF, but elements like blur and advanced filter effects are not accepted in pdf so they fail to translate.
  72 [17:40] <doctormo> You'll also notice that inkscape svg itself is slightly incompatibility with text fields appearing blank or as black squares in other svg viewers. (don't worry!) you can save your svg as a svg 1.1 compatible file for viewing in other programs.
  73 [17:40] <ClassBot> There are 10 minutes remaining in the current session.
  74 [17:41] <doctormo> The best process I've found is to use File > Export Bitmap and export the full page (select the page tab) at 300dpi
  75 [17:41] <doctormo> You can then convert the png output into a pdf using imagemagik, gimp etc. This will be bigger than an svg -> pdf output, but it'll be much safer.
  76 [17:41] <doctormo> Please do ask your questions now.
  77 [17:45] <ClassBot> jothejo2 asked: doctormo can i add scripts in inkscape?
  78 [17:45] <ClassBot> There are 5 minutes remaining in the current session.
  79 [17:46] <doctormo> jothejo2: Yes, you can make python, perl scripts as extentions. Do a web search for "python extentions" and read existing code.
  80 [17:46] <doctormo> This is where I have got to now, going mad with inkscape: http://divajutta.com/doctormo/art/Screenshot-3.png
  81 [17:46] <doctormo> How are you all doing?
  82 [17:47] <ClassBot> avagraphique asked: do you use a font manager and what font file types are compatible to use in linux/ubuntu (ex ttf, postscript, otf)?
  83 [17:48] <doctormo> ttf and otf are both compatible, I believe postscript and svg embedded fonts can be converted. I don't use a font manager, I make a symbolic link between the .fotns directory in my home folder and ~/Fonts which i just fill up witht he ttf files.
  84 [17:49] <doctormo> Thank you all for coming to my session and I hope you spread the word about how easy this all is.
  85 [17:49] <doctormo> Education is the primary activity we need to be doing! :-D
  86 [17:51] <doctormo> Bye!

MeetingLogs/openweekMaverick/HowToMakePostersUsingInkscape (last edited 2010-10-15 02:08:34 by ABTS-KK-dynamic-251)