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Before & After magazine has been sharing its practical approach to graphic design since 1990. Because our modern world has made designers of us all (ready or not), Before & After is dedicated to making graphic design understandable, useful and even fun for everyone.

Video production notes

To make our videos, John McWade is recorded at his own desk in a blend of natural outdoor light (from his right) and overhead fluorescent light. No special set lights are used. His camera is a Canon VIXIA HF S20. His lapel microphone is an Audio-Technica ATR 3350.

Video from the camera is imported directly into iMovie. Still graphics are created in Adobe InDesign and Photoshop at full size, 1920 x 1080 pixels (16:9 ratio), then dragged into iMovie, where titles and transitions are added and the video is composed. The finished video is uploaded, tagged and closed-captioned (a cool, free YouTube feature) on our YouTube channel.

From John McWade’s instructions to our creative staff:
“The easy way to create HD video graphics is to set up a 1920 x 1080px page in InDesign, view it at half size, and work to that. To check photo resolution, zoom to full size. Once finished, Export the document (or a range of pages) in jpeg format at 72dpi. It creates (almost instantly) a nice list of individual jpeg files that can drag right into iMovie.”

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