1. Working in pairs, discuss the following questions:
1. Can you think of professionals who use graphic design? How do they use it?
2. What kinds of documents can be produced with desktop publishing software?
3. Which of these should be published in electronic form and which in traditional paper versions? (a newspaper, a manual, schoolbooks, an encyclopedia)
2. Read the text and give the main idea of each paragraph:
The term "desktop publishing" was coined by Paul Brainerd, a founder of Aldus Corporation in 1985. He looked for a marketing catch-phrase that could describe the small size and relative affordability of this suite of products in contrast to the expensive commercial equipment existing at that time.
Desktop publishing refers to the process of using the computer to produce documents such as newsletters, brochures, books, and other publications that were once created manually using a variety of non-computer techniques along with large complex phototypesetting machines. Today desktop publishing software does it all - almost.
Properly speaking, desktop publishing is the technical assembly of digital files in the proper format for printing. In practical use, much of the "graphic design" process is also accomplished using desktop publishing and graphics software and is sometimes included in the definition of desktop publishing.
In fact, graphic design and desktop publishing are so similar that people often use the terms interchangeably. However, there is a certain difference between them.
Graphic design jobs involve the creative process of coming up with the concepts and ideas and arrangements that can present a specific message visually, while desktop publishing is the mechanical process that the designer and the non-designer use to turn their ideas for newsletters, brochures, ads, posters, greeting cards, and other projects into digital files for desktop or commercial printing. While desktop publishing requires a certain amount of creativity, it is more production-oriented than design-oriented.
Graphic designers use desktop publishing software and techniques to create the print materials they envision. The computer and desktop publishing software also aids in the creative process by allowing the designer to easily try out various page layouts, fonts, colors, and other elements.
Non-designers also use desktop publishing software and techniques to create print projects for business or pleasure. The amount of creative design that goes into these projects varies greatly. The computer and desktop publishing software, along with professionally-designed templates, allow consumers to construct and print the same type of projects as graphic designers although the overall product may not be as well-thought out, carefully crafted, or polished as the work of a professional designer.
When desktop publishing software first debuted, it was almost the exclusive realm of graphic designers. However, with the advent of more desktop publishing software and easier-to-use, consumer-oriented software desktop publishing became accessible to a wider range of people, including non-designers and others without graphic design experience (small business owners, secretaries, teachers, students, and individual consumers).
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Despite the fact that nowadays most graphic designers are still involved in desktop publishing - the production side of design some of them are quite vocal about their distaste for it, and the term desktop publisher often carries negative connotations of an amateur.
3. Answer the questions using the information in the text:
1. What does desktop publishing refer to?
2. What is the difference between desktop publishing and graphic design?
3. Whouses desktop publishing software and techniques? What for?
4. How does the computer and desktop publishing software aid in the creative process?
5. What is done to makedesktop publishing accessible to a wider range of people?
4. Decide if the following sentences are true or false. Correct the false ones:
1. The term "desktop publishing" was coined by John Brainerd, a founder of Abus Corporation.
2. Desktop publishing is a means of publishing reports, advertising, etc., to typeset quality using a desktop computer.
3. There is no difference between graphic design and desktop publishing.
4. Desktop publishing is the mechanical process that the designer use to turn his ideas for any projects into digital files for printing.
