Learn how to design engaging and interactive digital pages for your brand by exploring animation tools and digital publishing. This article provides comprehensive step-by-step instructions for creating a digital file's first page using a logo, image, and animation.
Key Insights
- The article provides a detailed guide to creating a digital file's first page, including the placement of a logo and image, and the use of a rectangular frame tool for the right-hand sections of the page.
- A variety of animation presets are introduced, such as the 'grow', 'shrink', and 'fly in' options, which can make objects on the page more engaging and interactive.
- The author explains how to adjust the timing of animation so that multiple animations can occur simultaneously or sequentially, providing a more dramatic and engaging user experience.
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In this video, we're going to be designing the first page of our digital file. On this first page, we'll have our logo on the left-hand side and an image on the right-hand side. So let's begin first by creating a frame for our image by going to our Toolbar and selecting the Rectangular Frame Tool, and we're going to simply utilize this to create a frame for the two right-hand sections of our page.
With this frame added, let's now jump over to our CC Libraries, where we have our Domus library. From here, we're going to add first our logo, and we'll drag this over to the left-hand side. Feel free to add a logo at whatever size you feel is appropriate. I'll drag mine to about this size, and hitting V on the keyboard, I'm simply going to center it here right along this pink line.
I also want it to be centered right here in this first section, so I'm going to drag a guide from the ruler on the left to right at 200 pixels, and holding Shift, I'll release right there. From here, I can simply drag it over so that it's centered both on this guide as well as on the horizontal center of the page. Next, let's add our image.
Feel free to use whatever image you'd prefer from our library. In this case, I'm going to use this image right here. I'll click on it, and I'm going to drag and click it right into this frame.
I'll then right-click and go to Fitting, and I'm going to select Fill Frame Proportionally. Again, feel free to resize or adjust yours using the Hand Tool however you'd prefer. I think this looks nice.
If we hit W on the keyboard, we can see what this looks like, and I like the size of all of this. Right here we have a nice view of this image, and the logo is not too large. Next, let's begin working with some of the digital opportunities that we have for this file.
To do this, we're first going to change our workspace. So let's go to the top where we have “VDCI” selected, and for our workspace now we're going to select Digital Publishing. If you've worked with Digital Publishing in the past, it may look a little different.
So let's again go to the top, and we'll reset our workspace by going down to Reset Digital Publishing. Here we'll see that we have various options, and I'm going to simply click on the double arrows at the top right-hand side to open this up a bit. We can see that in addition to many of the things we already have on our right-hand side, we also have this second panel filled with different opportunities.
So let's first explore Animation. Animation allows us to animate different objects within our page. So, for example, with our Selection Tool, if we click on our logo here and go to our Animation Panel, we can see that we have different options and different presets.
So with “Domus Interior Design.jpeg” as our name here, let's go down to our Preset and click the drop-down, and we'll see that we have many different animation options. We can select “Grow, ” and we'll see that the animation will grow from this preview here.
We could have it shrink, we can have it fly in from the bottom. Let's select “Fly In from Bottom.” Well, we now have our animation right here, and we can see this with a green line showing that it will fly in from the bottom.
We'd actually like to see this happen. To do this, we can do it one of two ways. First, we can go to the bottom and click “Preview Spread, ” and this will bring up the EPUB Interactivity Preview. Or, to access this at any point we'd prefer, we can go to the top to Window, drop down to Interactive, and go to the right to EPUB Interactivity Preview.
For us to be able to easily access this, let's also drag this into our bottom right-hand side, right under Liquid Layout. Now, if we click on this, we'll be able to see a preview of the animation. First, let's get a better view by dragging this panel out, and we can see it in a larger view.
Then on the bottom left-hand side, we can play a preview by clicking “Play.” Here, we see that when the page loads, our logo comes up from the bottom. This looks pretty good.
Let's now animate the right-hand side. To do this, we're going to select this image here and make sure that we select both the frame and the image. We'll then go to our Animation Panel, and with “Domus Room 8” selected—or whatever your image is—we can go to our Preset and click the drop-down. In this case, we're going to have it “Fade In.”
We can see an example of this with the butterfly. Now, if we drop down to EPUB Interactivity Preview and click “Play, ” we'll see an example of this. This looks pretty good. We have our logo popping up from the bottom, and then we have our image appearing on the right-hand side.
However, personally, this feels a little slow to me because the logo pops up, and then we have to wait for the right-hand image to appear. So to fix this, let's go up to our Timing Panel. Within Timing, we can time all of the animations and interactivity within our page.
As we go below, we'll see that “Domus Interior Design” is the first thing on the list, and our room image is the next. This signifies that first our logo is going to appear, and as soon as that is completed, then our room image will appear. If we want both to happen at the same time, we can hold Shift and make sure that both are selected. Then, going to the bottom, we'll click “Play Together.”
We can see this now at the bottom in EPUB Interactivity Preview, and we'll click “Play.” We'll see that now both animations start at the same time. While I like the look of this much better, it does feel like the logo is coming in a little fast, and I want a little more drama in the first load of the page.
So let's slow down the first animation by selecting our logo, going to the Animation Panel, and right below, we can select how long we want the animation to take. Let's click the up arrow until it's at two seconds. And rather than flying in from the bottom, I'm actually going to change mine—I’ll have it “Fade In” and keep it at two seconds.
And for this image on the right, I'm going to have it “Fly In from Right.” We'll see what this looks like. We'll go down to EPUB Interactivity Preview, hit “Play, ” and I like the look of this.
Here, we have our “Domus Interior Design” slowly fading in, and it's a very dramatic first page. I think this looks good so far. In addition, we can also look at this page and see that we have animations by identifying the icons at the bottom right-hand side showing the animation status.
We can also see green lines showing the direction the objects move along. So with all of that, we've now finished our first page. Let's hit CTRL+S on the keyboard to save our work, and in the next video, we'll begin working on our second page.
See you there!