Anne-Marie Concepcion

The Ingenious Chartwell Font for Making Graphs in InDesign

Submitted by colleen on 25 September 2011 - 12:15am.
Have you ever been disappointed by InDesign's lack of charting features (and really, how hard is it to be disappointed by something that's non-existent)? Over at lynda.com, Anne-Marie Concepción has a solution in this week's free InDesign Secrets episode. (Note: InDesign Secrets is David Blatner and Anne-Marie's bi-weekly series that gives you a free movie on some InDesign insight every week---think Deke's Techniques but with InDesign and slightly more sanity.)
 
The Chartwell font (yes, it's a font, I know!) from the inventive mastermind at TK type makes ingenious use of ligatures in order to turn simple text numbers into bars, lines, and pies.
 
In the movie, Anne-Marie shows you how to start by typing the mathematical equation that represents your chart numbers. You'll turn off InDesign's ligatures at first (seriously, part of the delight comes from having ligatures off, seeing normal text, then watching the magic happen when you turn them back on), then you simply apply variations on the Chartwell font and turn those numbers into corresponding charts when you turn ligatures back on. I'm pretty sure it's magic. It's definitely fun.
 
So, for example, let's say I started with this percentage breakdown, typed into InDesign, set in Chartwell with ligatures turned off, and each of the different values styled in a different color: 
 
 
Looks like normal friendly text, right? But, if I set the Chartwell option to the Pies font style (it's like setting a regular font to Italic or Bold) and turn the Ligatures on, the result is an automatic transformation into a pie chart that's set to those percentages:
 
 
Tip: In the video Anne-Marie explains how to turn your pie chart into the ring chart on the right by adding an alphabetical character to the equation. For the ring on the right, I added a +A to the equation, which is halfway on the a-Z continuum.
 
If I change the font family to Bars, the result is a bar graph:
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Martini Hour 066, In Which Two Davids and an Anne-Marie Remind Us There Is a New Version of InDesign

Submitted by colleen on 20 May 2010 - 1:05pm.

Believe it or not, CS5 contains more than just an upgrade to Photoshop. Yes, folks, my beloved InDesign also has a new and improved version. You might have been questioning whether we were even aware of that, given that Deke is admittedly heads-down the new Illustrator book at the moment and I was in the middle of installing InDesign CS5 as we recorded this very episode. In fact, I was 40% installed on ID CS5 when three of my favorite InDesigners turned up in the 'lounge for an InDesign Phone-In Roundabout Free-For-All. (It's like getting ready for a party. Stock the bar, make the hors d'ourves, install the software.)

Good thing our guests, David Blatner and Anne-Marie Concepcion of InDesign Secrets and David Futato, Deke's very own Design Mastermind, had been poking and prodding the thing for months and had fun stuff to share. Read more » 

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Martini Hour 008, In Which Deke Notes that It Doesn't Feel Like an Hour

Submitted by colleen on 31 March 2009 - 12:42am.

We've returned to our groovy tech-talk chill this week after the ruckus that was caused by inviting Russell Brown last week. And as promised, a winner from our martini hour visualization exercise will find his or her work featured as the lead graphic for this week's show. We'll start with Steve Newton because he paid the "I live across the Atlantic" tax and didn't get all the kitchy tradeshow castoffs that I sent to Gale solely because she lives in Canada.

Is anyone but me wondering if this picture is listing slightly? Meanwhile, here's the skinny on this week's installment of the world-famous Martini Hour. Read more » 

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Deke-eke-eke-eke on InDesign Secrets Podcast

Submitted by colleen on 14 May 2008 - 12:39am.

What could make one of my favorite podcasts even better? Well, the collision of goodness that happens when Deke is their special guest, that's what. Earlier this year, David Blatner and Anne-Marie Concepcion of the awesome InDesign Secrets (site and podcast) welcomed Deke (and honored him with their trademark echo effect) to chat about things InDesign-ine-ine-ine, including their general love for styles. (And the not-so-much-love for styles of the Table variety.)  Read more » 

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