== Open Week -- How to Make Posters using Inkscape - Martin Owens -- Tue, Oct 12 == {{{#!IRC [16:46] Welcome to the Making Posters in Inkscape session, we've taken a bit of extra time because we need to do some prep work. [16:47] the first thing to do is to install inkscape, http://doctormo.org/install.pl?inkscape <- click there [16:48] 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. [16:50] I'd like you to make a special folder to keep all your artworks in. Me I use ~/Graphics/ [16:51] There are 10 minutes remaining in the current session. === 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 [16:51] Logs for this session will be available at http://irclogs.ubuntu.com/2010/10/12/%23ubuntu-classroom.html following the conclusion of the session. [16:52] 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 [16:52] http://divajutta.com/doctormo/art/Media.tar.gz [16:52] This is a my precious media archive which all LoCo people, art and marketing people should download. [16:55] Once you have extracted your archive, I'd like you to open inkscape and get comfortable, open up your media directory too. [16:55] http://divajutta.com/doctormo/art/inkscape-setup.png [16:55] This is my work environment for making published media like posters. [16:58] 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. [17:00] 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. [17:01] The first thing to do is to install inkscape, http://doctormo.org/install.pl?inkscape <- click there [17:01] 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. [17:01] I'd like you to make a special folder to keep all your artworks in. Me, I use ~/Graphics/ [17:01] 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. [17:01] 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 [17:01] Once you have extracted your archive, I'd like you to open inkscape and get comfortable, open up your media directory too. [17:01] http://divajutta.com/doctormo/art/inkscape-setup.png 11:55 <- Just like this [17:01] This is my work environment for making published media like posters. [17:01] If you've got that all setup, then congratulations your ready for the class. [17:02] I'll give you all another 3 minutes to do that, downloading the 7MB archive might take a second. [17:05] You can extract the archive by right clicking on it and selecting "Extract here" [17:05] You can have a look through the folders and see what's there, all fun stuff. [17:06] OK time to move on, don't worry if your still downloading, we'll be doing backgrounds first. [17:06] In your inkscape window, you'll have a canvas. It's important at this stage to get your canvas the right size and orentation. [17:06] File > Document Properties [17:07] In the Format selection, we're going to select Ledger/Tabloid which is two US Letter sheets stuck together. You can also use A3. [17:08] Where it says background, we're going to click on that and change the colour to pure white with no transparency. [17:09] Close that preferences window and go back tot he canvas. [17:09] Goto File > Save As and save your work, use the save button on the toolbar religiously. [17:10] Next we're going to make a square using the draw square tool [17:11] 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. [17:13] http://divajutta.com/doctormo/art/Screenshot.png <- Like this [17:15] 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. [17:15] I install ttf-aenigma to get access to a lot of interesting fonts and fill my ~/.fonts directory with downloaded ttf files. [17:16] http://doctormo.org/install.pl?ttf-aenigma [17:16] You may have to restart inkscape to see the new fonts. [17:18] Once you have some text, we'll want to drag over an Ubuntu logo, which should be in the Ubuntu media folder. [17:18] Like so: http://divajutta.com/doctormo/art/Screenshot-1.png [17:21] Drag over some other elements and place them in your poster, go with images that reflect the style you want to convay. [17:22] All these media elements are svg, so they're all editable and decomposable too. [17:22] At this point I'd like to download some new media to put in my directory [17:22] 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. [17:23] Make sure that when downloading from wikimedia you download the svg and not the png. [17:24] 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. [17:24] 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/ [17:25] Spread Ubuntu is incidentally where you should upload your poster once it's done. [17:27] Once you've got all your downloadable elements together, next is the more creative part [17:27] designing [17:29] At this point we have to work a bit on Copyright. sorry guys! [17:29] I's important [17:29] 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. [17:30] For works you downloaded from elsewhere, you need to pay close attention to the license and abide by the rules. [17:30] 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. [17:30] You'll also need to credit the authors, so keep a record of them if you can. [17:31] Keeping a clean copyright workflow allows you a much better sense of security that your work isn't infringing on anything. [17:31] this is what I have so far -> http://divajutta.com/doctormo/art/Screenshot-2.png === JoeMaver1ckSett is now known as JoeMavericksett [17:32] anneboleyn asked: What if I use some open-source stuff and some that are not free? [17:33] 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. [17:33] If in doubt, make your own and license freely. [17:36] anneboleyn asked: Where can I get help in doing that (getting my own license)? [17:37] You can get your own license from http://creativecommons.org/licenses/ you can of course always make your own, but that's legally unsure. [17:38] OK so now if you've got something worthwhile and you've saved it. [17:38] You'll need to know how to print it so it comes out like you expect. [17:38] Make sure at this point to save your poster. [17:39] 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. [17:40] 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. [17:40] There are 10 minutes remaining in the current session. [17:41] The best process I've found is to use File > Export Bitmap and export the full page (select the page tab) at 300dpi [17:41] 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. [17:41] Please do ask your questions now. [17:45] jothejo2 asked: doctormo can i add scripts in inkscape? [17:45] There are 5 minutes remaining in the current session. [17:46] jothejo2: Yes, you can make python, perl scripts as extentions. Do a web search for "python extentions" and read existing code. [17:46] This is where I have got to now, going mad with inkscape: http://divajutta.com/doctormo/art/Screenshot-3.png [17:46] How are you all doing? [17:47] avagraphique asked: do you use a font manager and what font file types are compatible to use in linux/ubuntu (ex ttf, postscript, otf)? [17:48] 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. [17:49] Thank you all for coming to my session and I hope you spread the word about how easy this all is. [17:49] Education is the primary activity we need to be doing! :-D [17:51] Bye! }}}