Get a laser printer so you can see what your design looks like on paper.

Yes. Or at least post a pdf for us to look at - experienced as some of the members here are, you can't expect them to be able to picture what you're talking about without a visual.

Hi there,

Thank you for the replies. At the moment, the only 'visual' I have is two pieces of paper with the text typed and pictures stuck to the paper - supplied by the department requesting the leaflet.

My job is to create something more professional from this. As I am new to InDesign (i'm a web designer and this is my first print job).

My apologies for dropping this on people here. I have spent all day reading different ideas of what is the best grids, baseline and leading points for print work of this size. All seem to suggest different, so I guess I will just go with one. There seems to be a lack of decent InDesign tutorials on the internet.

You might change your mind after reading this thread

There are two ways to approach it. If you are just starting out, the look of a virginal empty page could be a little intimidating (heck, it still gives me the shivers) and starting a layout with predetermine grid settings might help you out to overcome that, or it might drive you deeper into a corner and inhibit imagination. Another way, is to sketch the initial layout, get your copy onto the page, then play with it for a little while on a purely aesthetic level, before setting for a particular grid system. Once you get a little more experience, you'll begin relying more on particular combination that you've found to work well, but in order to get there, it might help to start by working "organically".

Just my two cents.
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Personal Art and Design Portal of Ivan Gulkov
www.ivangdesign.com

I don't think reading about grids is the best way to start a design. I think you should try a more intuitive approach as suggested by oprion. Mock up the page, flow the type in, print it out, see how it looks, play around. Or sketch it.

www.lynda.com has good tutorials.

Read this and think about it:

I spent six years in Art School (took a bit longer than I wanted, hah) studying Illustration and Graphic Design (and Fashion, Fine Arts, Painting, Drawing, Lithography, etc), after fiddling around with doing lay–outs for my ‘High School’ magazine for three years. Then I went into pro illustration and visualising, doing design jobs on the side (paste up, anyone remember that?)
Next I discovered the Mac (somewhere in the later part of last century), taught myself QuarkXPress. Did Graphic Design. With Quark for 14 years. Switched to InDesign when OS X became ‘it’. Worked with ID for the last 6 or 7 years and now you want me to tell you how to do the MOST SIMPLE JOB THERE IS?

Learn! Experience! Teach yourself! The Internet is there to help you, giving you the opportunity to look at a lot of stuff. And ID has a very good Help-function.

(Sorry if this is rant-ish — young people are so… depending… kind of… What about being self-sufficient?)

. . .
Bert Vanderveen BNO

(Sorry if this is rant-ish — young people are so… depending… kind of… What about being self-sufficient?)

Stupid generalisation

Having done work for the NHS, I wouldn't suggest looking at any typefaces other than those in their identity guidelines.

http://www.nhsidentity.nhs.uk/all-guidelines

It may be easiest to use an existing design to give yourself a starting point, and I would imagine they'd expect any design produced to reflect their identity guidelines anyway.

Good luck!

Bert Vanderveen's generalisation applies, I think, when pricing your work as well, so maybe it's not that stupid, Andrew.

Of course it's stupid. 'Young people' is a stupid way to preface anything.

Am I young?

My point was Hanabi came here for advice not to be told how much software somebody knows.

Imagine if a car mechanic told you how many cars he had fixed and how he knew the size of every spanner.

Sure Hanabi was asking for something that was not easily answered, at times I have asked similarly demanding questions. For me it stems from the anxiety of being new to something rather than being young — There are 14 year old web/interactive designers who would run rings around many of us.

Is that all fair?

@ AS — I'm not sure why pricing was mentioned, I'd never advocate selling yourself short, just know when to be charitable :-)

@ Bert/AS/anybody — I'm not trying to pick a fight!

@ Fredrik — I don't know if you are 'young'. I like the fact you can admit to struggling though.

@ Hanabi — How are you getting on?