Before & After

Designer, teacher, and author John McWade has been at the forefront of the graphic design and desktop publishing worlds for several decades. The very first beta user of the desktop publishing program Aldus PageMaker, he went on to found the first desktop publishing company, PageLab, to take advantage of the new tools. With his partner Gaye McWade, he founded the acclaimed Before and After magazine.

Knowledge
Design without rulers
The empty page has a lot to say
Our color wheel
How to find the perfect color
What typeface goes with that?
How contrasts create type style
Typography 101
Character parts
Technique
Many from one
More from less
Cropping basics
Background selection
Focal points
Cool covers
How to design a second page
Bring the outside in
Simply borderless
Voice-over captions
Multi-caption photo tells many stories
Multiple captions in high style
Lessons from a beautiful site
A welcoming home page
Simple, bold, bright
Organize that card
The power of the postcard
Put a photo in your name
Functional beauty
Projects
Make a theme
Design a story-style brochure
Template: Story-style brochure
Design a pocket-size brochure
Template: Pocket-size brochure
A small newsletter that reads big
Design a “photo” graph
Design a card the easy way
Design a dual-purpose letterhead
How to set a text-only logotype
Design a flier that comes back to you
Template: Flier that comes back
Small site, great format
Template: Small format website
Design a beautiful Web header
Design simple presentations
Picture your presentation
Design a panoramic booklet
Template: Panoramic booklet
Design below the line
Index