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Lesson 1 -- Getting Started
Here's what you'll learn in Lesson 1:
What You Will Need to Design Professional Graphics All you'll need to learn professional graphic design using this tutorial is one program called ®Xara X, which is available here for a free 15 day trial download. No need to go purchase thousand dollar software or other programs. Everything you'll need to create your graphics is contained in ®Xara X . Note: I do receive a small commission for recommending Xara X to clients and using it in my course. This enables me to offer graphics training at an affordable rate. Please be kind and use my referral link below to download your free trial version of Xara X: ®Xara X is
designed to work with the following minimum system
requirements: Windows 95/98/2000/NT4.0 Intel compatible 486 or better Min 12 MB RAM (64MB recommended) 20 MB available hard disk space Minimum screen resolution of 640x480
Once you've received your free trial download of ®Xara X and installed it, you'll open the program up to a screen that looks like this:  As you can see simply by opening the start up screen, ®Xara X offers many tools to aid in creating graphics. I'm not going to explain each tool before we begin, but rather, as you're learning how to create different types of graphics, you'll learn the different tools along the way. I'll be using screen shots to demonstrate each tool we use. The Top Menu Your menu at the top of the screen looks like this:
You'll use this menu to save graphics, import and export your graphics, and save your templates to edit later. Once you create your first graphic below, you'll be asked to use the "File" option to export your graphic. Okay.... ready to create your very first graphic??? How to Create a Beveled Text Graphic A beveled text graphic has the edges of the letters manipulated to be larger or smaller, rounded or jagged, etc. This graphic technique creates the 3-d look of a letter or object. The first thing you'll do is type your text into ®Xara X. To do this, click on the "Text" button within the left hand tool menu that looks like this:
Once you click on the button above, move your cursor to where ever you would like on the screen, and click it once. Now, begin typing the words: Graphic Design To change the color of your words and/or the style of writing, you can highlight the words and click on a color from the bottom color codes. We'll learn a little more about color codes in a future lesson. To change your letter style, you'll do the same as you would any program. Click on the box where you see "Times New Roman" at the top menu and select a word style here. I chose "Century Schoolbook" for this particular graphic, but you may select any style you wish. The great thing about creating graphics is you don't have to worry about the letter style on the Internet like you would normal text on a web page. When creating a web page, you can only use a couple of styles (Times New Roman or Arial) to be really safe when others are viewing your web pages. But with graphics, this is not the case. Change the size of your letters: The box to the right of your letter style box with the number 16pt indicates the size of your words. Highlight your words and then select the size "24pt". Ready to Use the "Bevel" Tool: Click on the Selector tool that looks like this:
Then move your mouse arrow over your letters and click it once to select the words you typed. Next, click on the Bevel tool from your left hand toolbar, which looks like this:
Notice that your text you typed now looks like this:
To enlarge the letters, hold your mouse over one of the red arrows (I usually select the bottom middle one), and click and drag the arrow very easily and slowly away from your words. If you do this too fast and too far out, your letters will look REALLY BIG. So, take your time. Move your arrows until your letters look like this:
Notice there's now a long black arrow coming up from the center of the words with a red square at the point. Hold your cursor over this red square and drag the square in a circular motion around your words to see different dimensions of this graphic. You'll be able to make one side of the letters shiny, giving it even more of a 3-D look. When finished, you can click anywhere on the screen (in the white space) to remove the arrows. Here's what my finished product looks like: Now that you've created your very first graphic, it's time to save the graphic... How to Save Your First Handmade Graphic You have two choices when it comes to saving your image. You can either save it as a template in your ®Xara X program or you can export the image out of ®Xara X onto your hard drive or a disk. If you're designing a graphic that may need to be altered later, you'll want to first save it as a template in your ®Xara X program. An example would be if you create a logo for someone and show it to them for approval, and they may ask you to change the colors or the wording, etc. If you do not save it as a "Template", you will not be able to bring the graphic back into ®Xara X and make changes to the work you've already created. You can add to it, but not change anything with the graphic itself. Then, you would have to start from scratch all over again. By saving the graphic as a template, you'll be able to open it in ®Xara X and manipulate it just as if you were creating it for the first time. This feature has come in very handy for me - many times. To Save Your Graphic as a Template: Click on "File" in the upper left hand corner of your ®Xara X screen. Then select "Save Template". You'll see a screen that looks like this:  In the box labeled "File Name", type what you wish to name your graphic with .xar after the words. For example: graphic1.xar Then click on "Save". Now, your graphic is saved as a template in ®Xara X. You will be able to open ®Xara X and then open this graphic if you need to change it later. To Export (or save) Your Graphic to Your Hard Drive: Click on "File" once again, and then click on "Export". You'll see a screen similar to the one shown above which allows you to select where on your hard drive you would like to save your graphic. You may wish to create a new folder labeled "Practice Graphics" and place your images within this folder each week. You can also use this same screen to save the graphic to a floppy disk or CD if needed. Once you create your folder labeled "Practice Graphics", click on it twice to open the folder. Then, in the box labeled "File Name", type the name of your graphic. Special Note: Your graphic should be named .gif or .jpg. So the "File Name" should look similar to this: graphic1.jpg or graphic1.gif *** Photo images retain best quality with .jpg files. Once you've typed your "File Name", click on "Save". Then, you'll get a screen which has the "Export" button at the bottom middle of the screen. Click on "Export". And, you're done! :-) If you already know the basics of web page design, you'll know that in order to get the graphic you've just created onto a web page, you'll insert it just like you would any normal graphic from your hard drive or a disk. That's it for sample Lesson 1......
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