Texturing with InDesign

In an industry dominated by slick tech design, bold graphics and colour, there’s a danger of things appearing a little too synthetic, especially when it comes to design that invites us to engage and interact with it. Life comes with smears, cracks and scratches and – in the right circumstances – presenting them in your design work can help ground it in the real world.

Textures can provide that subtle bridge between reality and an artificial arena. The power of touch is as evocative and subtle as the sense of smell – just pick up your iPad and feel that polished metal surface. You’re touching ‘quality’ aren’t you? A surface that appears tactile has us reaching out to feel it, which can become powerfully instinctive, especially when it comes to UI design on touch devices.

In this tutorial we’ll look at settings in the Effects panel that you can apply to imported photo textures when working in InDesign CS6, and how you can use opacity settings to utilise and enhance the appealing traits of various photos.

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