Friends of Design – Academy of Digital Arts

Web Publishing & Interactive Media
This one year, full time, practical programme engages you in a fixed curriculum around standards-compliant web design and publishing, video production and post production techniques, 2D animation, compositing and visual effects, game design theory and community supported open source content management systems. The programme emphasizes technical training, interactive screen design in context and conceptual thinking.
NOTE: This course is not suitable for absolute beginners. You will need either basic skills in Adobe Photoshop or relevant work experience to cope with the design pressures of the web and motion graphics modules.
What to Expect from your studies
The first year is packed with theoretical & practical training that includes:
Conceptualisation Techniques
Interactive Screen Design Theory
2D Animation, Sound Editing & Motion Theory
HTML5 and Responsive Design
Game Design Theory
Electronic Book Publishing & ePubs
Web Technologies 2: WordPress
Motion Graphics 1: Animation, Compositing and VFX
Motion Graphics 2: Video & Post Production
Interactive Web based Portfolio & Showreel
You will lean how to use the following Software Applications:
Adobe Photoshop, After Effects, Premiere Pro, Audition and Edge
WordPress
Sublime Text
Sigil
Languages: HTML5/CSS3, jQuery/JavaScript
Prerequisites
You will require the 1 year Print Design & Publishing course or equivalent study/work experience in order to enrol on this programme.

This school offers programs in:

English

Print Design & Publishing
Our accredited one-year, practical Print Design and Publishing course is designed to give you a thorough understanding of the print media environment. You will learn to master the tools, practices and terminology required to produce professional print media. You will emerge confident enough to apply your skills from pre-press to post-press: receiving a brief, conceptualizing a visual solution; presenting the ideas professionally; executing a concept digitally through the use of a wide range of industry standard application programs such as Adobe InDesign®, Illustrator® and Photoshop®, and applying finishing art techniques to take your documents to press, and, finally, presenting the final body of work in a professional manner.
What to Expect from your studies
The first year is packed with theoretical & practical training that includes:
Scamping techniques
History of Desktop Publishing & Typography
Conceptualisation Techniques
Raster Image Editing & Manipulation
Layout Design Principles & Techniques
Brochure & Editorial Design
Vector Illustration Principles & Techniques
Corporate Identity Design & Cross Media Publishing
Designing for Tablets & Mobile Devices
Printed Portfolio Book Project
You will learn how to use the following Software Applications:
Adobe® Photoshop®
Adobe® InDesign®
Adobe® InDesign® Digital Publishing Suite
Adobe® Illustrator®
Adobe® Acrobat®
On Completion
You will be able to do the following on completion of the course:
Scamp creative ideas on paper using various mediums such as pencil, ink.
Render drawings with increased speed & proficiency.
Create professional-looking storyboards to express your conceptual ideas.
Apply colour confidently in a designs and layouts.
Apply the essentials of typography
Apply the principles and elements of design to your creative work
Hand-draw simple, original illustrations for your projects
Produce a variety of printed media, including brochures, editorials, product packaging, wine labels and posters
Produce interactive PDF presentations, cross media campaigns, online banners and flash micro-sites, including a mini digital Flash portfolio for online display.
Prerequisites
You must be 18 years of age or older, you must have obtained a Matric Certificate and you must be fluent in spoken and written English. Previous Art or Design training at a school level is an advantage.

This school offers programs in:

English

Adobe inDesign Essentials
If you are an aspiring or working Print Designer, Adobe inDesign is an indispensable tool for layout and print industry related requirements. We will teach you from a basic level to intermediate how to use this fantastic program to perfect your layouts and projects with inDesigns powerful print and production ready engine.
Description
Whether it’s a magazine spread, a poster, or even a Web page, nothing connects or communicates like an effective layout. Layout design, the art of what goes where on a page or editorial spread, is a creative challenge for any graphic or digital designer. Learn how to build strong foundations for your page design, explore creative applications for lines and shapes, and discover how to break the rules while maintaining the underlying structure of a page.
Lessons
Adobe inDesign: Module 1 – Getting to Know the inDesign Environment
Adobe inDesign: Module 2 – Working with Text & Graphics
Adobe inDesign: Module 3 – Drawing
Adobe inDesign: Module 4 – Working with Graphics
Adobe inDesign: Module 5 – Colour
Adobe inDesign: Module 6 – Working with Layers
Adobe inDesign: Module 7 – Master Pages
Adobe inDesign: Module 8 – Styles
Adobe inDesign: Module 9 – The Pages Panel
Adobe inDesign: Module 10 – Preparing for Output
WHAT WE OFFER?
10 interactive modules
10O+ video lectures
Over 9 hours of content
Learn from PDF documents and quizzes
Build documents from start to completion
WHO SHOULD ATTEND?
Print Publishers
Administrators
Educators
Advertisers & Marketers

This school offers programs in:

English

Adobe Illustrator Essentials
Adobe Illustrator is a powerful and versatile tool for creating illus­trations for Print and Web. By tapping into the power of this vector based program, you can create detailed and scalable art for almost any applica­tion. You will learn to work with important menus, tools, and palettes, explore selection tools, drawing tools, layers, the pen tool (a lesson unto itself) as well as learn transformations, distortions, type tools, and modifying paths and shapes. Master this challenging and rewarding vector program, giving yourself illustration wings.
Description
In this course, you will build a solid foundation in Adobe Illustrator. You will start with a tour of important menus, tools, and palettes, then explore selection tools, drawing tools, layers, the pen tool (a lesson unto itself) as well as transformations/distortions, type tools, and modifying paths and shapes. You’ll never call Illustrator help again. Practical projects and exercises make this course a must! You will be amazed how quickly you will begin to master this challenging but rewarding vector program.
WHAT DO WE OFFER?
10 interactive modules
10O+ video lectures
Over 9 hours of content
Learn from PDF documents and quizzes
Build documents from start to completion
WHO SHOULD ATTEND?
Print Publishers
Administrators
Educators
Advertisers & Marketers

This school offers programs in:

English

InDesign to ePub
This course is intended only for experienced layout artists and print designers wishing to migrate Word and Indesign files to ePub / Mobi formats for distribution on mobile devices such as tablets or eReaders. Friends of Design – Academy of Digital Arts, will teach you the skills to be able to easily navigate and use the basic tools of this incredible program with absolute confidence. Among various other easy to use tools, we will show you how to create high quality and visually stunning documents that stand out from the crowd, insert various links and speed up your workflow using the sharing and collaborating capabilities of this popular program.
Lessons
Module 1: An Introduction to E-books, Readers, and Formats
Module 2: How to Export an ePub from InDesign
Module 3: From InDesign to ePub – What Changes?
Module 4: Manage Export Order
Module 5: Control Formatting with Styles
Module 6: Spacing with Styles
Module 7: Breaking the Book into Chapters
Module 8: Exporting Images
Module 9: Tables
Module 10: Book Covers, Links, Footnotes, Metadata
WHAT DO WE OFFER?
10 interactive modules
10O+ video lectures
Over 9 hours of content
Learn from PDF documents and quizzes
Build documents from start to completion
WHO SHOULD ATTEND?
Print Publishers
Administrators
Educators
Advertisers & Marketers

This school offers programs in:

English

Authoring ePub
This course is intended for print designers desiring additional skills in editing ePUB files by accessing and tweaking the XHTML and CSS components of an ePUB file in order to have full control of the text flow, image display and general appearance of eBooks across arange of supported readers and mobile devices.
About the Course
This course focuses on how to finish an EPUB document created in Adobe InDesign. While the latest version of InDesign is a great tool for creating EPUB e-books, there are still some aspects of EPUB creation that cannot be done in InDesign. To fine tune an EPUB and make it look and work exactly as needed, it is necessary to edit that EPUB using text-editing software. This course covers the skills needed to create a well crafted and valid EPUB e-book.
Lessons
Module 1: How to open, edit and validate an ePub
Module 2: Introduction to XML & XHTML
Module 3: Introduction to CSS
Module 4: More CSS
Module 5: More About XHTML
Module 6: A Closer look at the TOC.ncx Document
Module 7: A Closer Look at Content.opf
Module 8: Editing TOC.ncx and Content.opf
Module 9: Regular Expressions
Module 10: Common ePub Edits
WHAT WE OFFER?
10 interactive modules
10O+ video lectures
Over 9 hours of content
Learn from PDF documents and quizzes
Build documents from start to completion
WHO SHOULD ATTEND?
Print Publishers
Administrators
Educators
Advertisers & Marketers

This school offers programs in:

English

HTML5/CSS3 & Responsive
As the amount of mobile devices increase exponentially each year in all shapes and formats, the web is drastically trying to keep up. In the past, web developers have had to create completely new designs in order to optimise the web experience on mobile platforms. In 2012, the concept of Responsive Web Design or Responsive Architecture was released to combat this ever growing scenario. Now, with the aid of more semantic coding practices in HTML5 and more powerful layout and styling capabilities in CSS3, mobile first designs have become one of the most popular and in-demand skills in the front-end development world.
In this 5 week course, students will learn the principles of Responsive Design. The course begins with a contextual introduction of new HTML5 semantic elements, moving on to CSS3 Properties, Advanced Selectors and the ever so important Media Queries. In order to understand the fundamental concepts behind Responsive Design students will create their own CSS3 grid-framework.
The course then changes its focus towards two of the most popular Responsive front-end frameworks: Twitter Bootstrap & Zurb Foundation, providing students with detailed experience in the principles, HTML structure, CSS styling and jQuery plugins like drop down menus, accordions, sliders and modals that apply to each framework respectively. At the end of the course, students will have employed a responsive framework of their choosing that will enable their website to respond to the users choice of device: Desktop, iPad and iPhone.
Course Requirements
Students should have working knowledge and understanding of the following:
HTML/CSS Essential Skills or similar
HTML Syntax and Tags
The concept of semantic HTML markup, separating markup, presentation and behavior
Core CSS concepts such as selectors, properties and values
Core CSS syntax.
Course objectives
By the end of the course students will have useable knowledge of the following:
Advance basic HTML & CSS knowledge
Be proficient in the new HTML5 and CSS 3 standards
Understand the reason and requirement of Responsive Web Design
Understand when to use Responsive Web Design principles based on the market and clients
Be able to create a custom CSS grid-framework
Be able to apply learned Responsive principles to other websites and projects
Have the ability to build responsive web sites on both Twitter Bootstrap and Zurb Foundation
Gain a basic understanding of jQuery plugins included in the above frameworks
Modules
Introduction to HTML 5
Introduction to CSS3
Introduction to Responsive Web Design
Knowing When to Employ Responsive Web Design
Grid-Systems
Zurb Foundation
Twitter Bootstrap
Responsive Debugging
Transforming a Non-Responsive Website to a Responsive Website
Whats Next…

This school offers programs in:

English

Game Graphics & Multimedia Entertainment
Make use of your existing design skills and expand your creativity into other markets such as Game Design for Ad games, Educational games, Online or Mobile games and more – we’ll show you just how to get there.
Friends of Design – Academy of Digital Arts, has been running the Game Graphics & Multimedia Entertainment Course since 2012 with great success, being the first Council of Higher Education accredited, stand-alone course of its kind in South Africa.
This course offers game enthusiasts, creatives and interactive media interested students the chance to get an education in this field, thus providing the future employees for companies in the digital entertainment business, as well as equipping students for starting their own companies as freelancers.
What to expect from your studies
The course is packed with theoretical & practical training that includes:
Game Production Overview
History of Games and Gaming
Game Design Concepts
Game Design Document Writing
3D Modeling and Texturing Basics
Scripting Basics
Game Engine Basics
The different applications of Game Technology
How to start game and interactive product production
Pitching a Game Concept
Creating and Importing in-game assets
Final Project in your field of choice (Scripting, Game Design Document, 3D Modeling …)
Game Prototyping
Interface Design Theory
Animation in 3D Software
Advanced Scripting
Level Design Theory
You will learn how to use the following Software Applications:
Unity3D®
Blender®
JavaScript (Game Engine related)
On Completion
You will be able to do the following on completion of the course:
Work with a team of specialists creating games or other interactive products
Understand Game Technology and its many applications
Create 3D models for in-game or interactive use
Script gameplay elements for games
Come, define and document a game concept from idea to the finished document
Analyze games for flaws in game features and level design
Understand the game industry better than most people
Plan, research, work and improve your skills in your field of specialization and others
Create game concepts for different purposes and target groups (Advertising, Education, Entertainment, etc.)
Know what makes games work and why
Prerequisites
You must be 18 years of age or older, you must have obtained a Matric Certificate and you must be fluent in spoken and written English. Previous Art or Design training at a school level is an advantage.
Graphic Design, IT, Animation and Computer studies are advantageous for the G.A.M.E Course, but not essential.

This school offers programs in:

English

Adobe InDesign
Adobe InDesign is best described as a long document application that makes creating complex documents an easy task. In a graphic design setting, InDesign seamlessly integrates photo manipulations and vector art created in Photoshop and Illustrator and can be considered not only as software that assembles them but also as an independent layout package on its own. InDesign can be used for small and large projects. It is simple enough to generate posters or business cards, but is powerful enough to layout books or magazines, as well as set them up for reproduction.
Although InDesign features a host of tools aimed towards publishing for print, it is also fast becoming a force to be reckoned with in the electronic publishing and web fields, and is no longer only used for print materials. Features like styles, preflighting and master pages are what make Adobe InDesign such a powerful long document application. In this course, not only will we cover the InDesign essentials, but some specialised tricks of the trade presented by an experienced lecturer. On its completion, you should not only be comfortable using InDesign to layout your documents, but have some insight into interactive design and have a foundation going into development for devices such as smartphones and iPads.
Course Requirements
Students should have working knowledge and understanding of the following:
Basic Computer Skills for PC/Mac.
Course objectives
By the end of the course students will have useable knowledge of the following:
Navigation and management of InDesign documents
Managing colours and gradients
Creation of custom art from in InDesign
Work with and manage external graphics
Create and edit text
Application of effects and styles
Management of pages and masters
Set up of basic interactive design
Export PDFs for printing purposes
Modules
Module 1 – Getting Started
Module 2 – Working with Colour
Module 3 – Creating & Manipulating Objects
Module 4 – Managing & Importing Graphics
Module 5 – Working with Text 1
Module 6 – Working with Text 2
Module 7 – Effects & Styles
Module 8 – Pages & Masters
Module 9 – Interactive Design
Module 10 – Preparing for Output

This school offers programs in:

English

Adobe Photoshop
Adobe Photoshop is a multi-purpose application for creating artwork suitable for both screen and print graphics. It is a primarily used for the creation and manipulation of pixel-based images, for instance in editing high detail photographs. Photoshop can be used for practically anything image related, which includes photo manipulation, image retouching and correction, special effects, digital illustrations or the creation of artwork starting with a blank canvas. Its uses extend from altering a facial expression or body shape, to creating a user interface or buttons for the web.
In this course, not only will you learn the Photoshop essentials, but some unique insights as to what you can achieve combining the various tools you learn. On its completion, you should feel comfortable using the software to edit and manipulate your own images as well as be able to create your own art. In a graphic design environment, Photoshop forms an essential part of the print design suite which includes Illustrator, InDesign and Acrobat, although is also extensively used in a variety of different industries, wherever images need to be processed. It is considered by many to be one of the most popular products in the Adobe range.
Course Requirements
Students should have working knowledge and understanding of the following:
Basic Computer Skills for PC/Mac.
Course objectives
By the end of the course students will have useable knowledge of the following:
Navigation and management of Photoshop documents
Editing documents & working with layers
Creating and using selections
Custom art creation
Image correction
Using adjustments to alter images
Create and edit text
Application of filters & styles
Specialised features such as Content Aware Scale, Auto-Align, Auto-Blend and Puppet Warp
Saving and exporting of the various associated file formats
Modules
Module 1 – Interface & Shortcut Keys
Module 2 – Editing Documents & Working with Layers
Module 3 – Selections
Module 4 – Creating Art
Module 5 – Image Correction
Module 6 – Adjustments
Module 7 – Working with Text
Module 8 – Filters & Styles
Module 9 – Cool Features
Module 9 – Final Thoughts

This school offers programs in:

English