Writing Project Stage 1: Write your description
Satge 2: Review and categorize the description
Stage 3: Insert pictures, and descriptions of the images
This is the first stage of the writing project. Look upon this as an exercise in writing a description - like you would write about a journey for a travel guide. A good way to start is by making a mind map - to stake out the territory or to mark the places you have been - which sets out the things you are going to talk about. So for example in your capability statement you want to give an account of your abilities - and you will embroider your account with stories from the projects and courses you have done. Say one of the ‘places’ in your story is about your sketching skills; you may want to talk about instances where your sketching ability made a big difference, and you may want to show pictures as examples substantiating your story. The next thing to do - after you mark out the territory - is to do a budget; this is a word count for each item on your mind map. Now if you are starting from 1500 words and you have 5 points you wish to talk about - that gives you a rough per item budget of 300 words. Writing about any part of your ability in 300 words is easy - but writing a focussed account that has an impact requires just that little extra effort.
Once you have your text written up you need to take it to the next level. In the first instance I will do this task for you; I will read your text and analyze it for what you are trying to say. I will then see if I can make my own mind map of that is going on in your text piece. I would be looking for a balanced account of abilities, or a breadth of abilities making a case by showing examples of robustness. Often when we write we may forget the audience the text is meant for - and we may fail to see what they would in turn be looking for in the text. So I will be watching out for any slant or over emphasis in your writing. All this would constitute a review of your text - and I would be able to suggest a set of categories for you to organize your text into.
Once you have a working text ticking along merrily, it is time to bring in the pictures. We are designers and we talk best when we can do a show and tell. So being in the pictures and insert them into the text. Be careful in your choice of pictures, select those that show off your abilities and add to the text. Each text has to be accompanied by a minimum of 100 words of description. Make sure to add to the 100 words a cryptic notation grounding it in a context - this is the year the work was done, the name of the project and any other little detail such as ‘done in Foshan or Ahmedabad’. This last detail adds to the texture of the account. If you feel confident you can also introduce images of work in progress; sometimes an image of you at work may be appropriate, and certainly a sequence of progression of work (such as Edwin and/or Ryan’s prototype time lapse progress photos) is much appreciated.
© Soumitri Varadarajan, 2009
Stage 4: Lay it all out in Indesign over 20 pages The next stage is laying it all out. I have suggested you use Indesign CS3 or 4 as the appropriate medium for this. First you make 20 blank pages. You then need to make master pages which have the guides and page numbers, header and footers. It may be a good idea to sketch out a rough idea of what your layouts are going to look like. You then need to select a font - suggest a font that disappears and makes the text block look like a grey sheet is the best. My favourite is Helvetica for this. Remember you want your images to get prominence and there is no point making fonts and images compete. Another rule in using fonts is keep the number of fonts you use to a minimum - just one will serve you perfectly. Alongside this is font sizes - you should keep these to a minimum too. Again you can use just one size and play with spaces to make your headings stand out. One you have your font scheme worked out - you need to set these up as character styles. With your master pages done and your character styles set up you are ready to fly. You are now ready to pull text and images into these 20 pages. Once you have all the material on the pages - you can move them about and do individual pages. But remember to stick to the guides - that is important. In laying out pages big doses of discipline is good.