Flash® Catalyst™ CS5 Bible

Chapter 19. Creating a Design Comp in Illustrator

IN THIS CHAPTER

• Identifying the design requirements

• Creating the file in Illustrator

• Optimizing the artwork

The remaining chapters in this book assist you in pulling together the primary lessons learned through the earlier chapters by providing step-by-step tutorials that guide you through the process of creating an application using Flash Catalyst.

This tutorial is by no means designed to cover every aspect of any of the programs listed, nor detail the steps required for every workflow in Catalyst. Instead, it follows the primary workflow for which Catalyst is designed: taking an Illustrator design comp through Catalyst to Flash Builder.

Identifying the Design Requirements

Good design does not happen by accident. Instead, you should always undertake a process of careful planning to determine the requirements of the application and expectations of the client before attempting to begin the design work.

In the hypothetical scenario detailed here, you have been tasked with creating an online presence for a magazine subscription service. The client has stated his needs as follows:

1. Present a modern, Web 2.0 look and feel for the application.

2. Provide an intuitive user interface focused on driving the user to purchase subscriptions.

3. Allow the company to organize magazines by category, price, and other criteria as needed.

4. Provide search functionality for users to look up magazines.

5. Include an area for featured titles that the company can populate as ...