Customer Reviews

The InDesign Effects Book

5 star:		(4)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

I dislike giving any book a negative review but this book is really misleading in subject matter. It should be titled along the lines of: How to use InDesign where Photoshop will do the job as well if not better. The vast bulk of the book is taken up with producing artefacts (buttons, icons, text, etc) that are much more commonly fabricated in Photoshop. In the Introduction the author states that he has "always been a Photoshop guy". Ok I can live with that, but then he adds further down that "the book does not contain any page-size projects such as sample brochures or mock advertisements". Sorry, I can't live with this. I bought the book because I assumed that it would help me do layout with text and artwork for just these kind of jobs. If your needs are similar to mine (learning InDesign rather than QuarkXpress), this is almost certainly not the book of first choice.

This is my first indesign book and it is one of my favorites now, It is a visual and easy to follow book.

The author knows exactly what we are looking for to make our work better looking and to make it look very professional, you won't believe how easy is to do that, and having this book by your side is a great time saver. Ted Locascio (the author) also offers himself for you to write him for further assistance, but believe me you are not going to have a problem in my point of view it covers most of the great things you can do with indesign. Of coarse this are just ideas and your creativity has no limits.
Oh I also want to say that if you are getting started with indesign CS2 (this book works perfcetly for CS2) that if you want to practice first the author has his webpage where you can download the images.

Believe me this is worth to buy you will be surprised of how much effects with types and paragaraphs you can do.

I'd recommend this book, it reminds me of the Photoshop tips and tricks books out there. I have a few of those and thought this was an interesting take in that its Indesign. Its definitely not a layout instruction book or anything like a Bible how-to though. Its more a "fun things you can do in Indesign" thing. The coffee text effect - I forget what it's called - is really cool. I used it in a postcard I just did for a client. They loved it.

Anyone that uses InDesign in either a professional mode or as a casual user can learn from these tips. InDesign has so much to offer but can be difficult to figure out. This book possess a well laid out format that is easy to follow and understand. InDesign is not meant to be a competing application to Photoshop. However if you can learn (through this book) many of the neat tricks and abilities of the program then you don't have to move back and forth in the two programs. ID and PS have separate functions and purposes. InDesign Effects will help the novice and the not so novice to become a more powerful user of the program.

I was greatly disappointed in this book. While there were a few interesting how-tos, I found most of the exercises mundane and designs mediocre. I would, instead recommend the How-to-Wow InDesign or the InDesign Cookbook if you're looking for a design oriented InDesign book (too true, not very many InDesign graphic design books out there, but plenty others if all you want to do are print/book and text heavy docs). Pass on this and take a looksee at the other two which I found inspiring, beautifully designed and well laid out - worth 5*.

I had no idea that I could do some of these special with InDesign! The book is well written (even entertaining) and the instructions are easy to follow. And... when I had a question, I emailed the author (contact info. provided in the book) and he responded within 2 days!

"The InDesign Effects Book" is a "must have/must read/must follow" book for anyone who is now or wants to become a serious user of Adobe InDesign software. Did you know you can create not just page layouts but graphics in InDesign? Ted LoCasio's book gives easy to follow directions that will bring dazzling effects to your presentations.
Quick aside: The book's instructional sidebars (on almost every page) are worth their weight in gold!

I'm glad I bought this before I read the Irish designer's review. I deal in layouts all the time and found great ideas in here. As a Quark gal I already have a background in layout, so that's not really what I was looking for. But if you like photoshop tricks books, you'll like this one. I guess you could do some of these things in Photoshop, but my thing is that I bought Indesign so I don't have to go back and forth between Photoshop and Illustrator and the layout program. I can't tell you how many times my computer has crashed when I've been working in Quark and launched photoshop to do an effect - thanks Steve Jobs, gotta love Macs. Anyway, I thought the gel effect was really cool and I'm looking forward to trying more of the others. Thumbs up from a designer here in the states.