11th Grade — Typography in Photoshop

⏰ Do Now — Start Here

What is the difference between "tracking" (spacing across a whole word) and "kerning" (spacing between just 2 letters)? Take your best guess.

This is exam-relevant

This lesson maps directly to an Adobe Certified Professional (ACP) exam domain. Keep a running personal vocabulary list all year -- it becomes your exam study guide. See the ACP Exam Prep section for a full study guide and practice questions.

🎯 Today's Big Question

How do we control typography precisely inside Photoshop using the Character and Paragraph panels?

📈 By the End of Today, You Will Be Able To

Add and format type using the Character panel (font, size, tracking, leading, color).
Control paragraph-level settings (alignment, spacing) using the Paragraph panel.
Convert text to a graphic/shape layer when needed for special effects.

🧰 What You'll Need

Computer with Photoshop

📋 Your Plan for Today

Day 1: Exploring the Panels

Do Now (5 min).
Mini-lesson/demo (10 min): tour of the Character and Paragraph panels.
Guided practice (25 min): systematically test every major setting on the same sample word/paragraph, screenshotting each change.
Share (5 min).

Day 2: Typographic Poster

Do Now (5 min): pick a favorite quote or your own name for today's poster.
Applied project (35 min): design a typographic poster using at least 4 different Character/Paragraph settings intentionally, converting at least one word to a shape for a custom effect.
Share (5 min).

🖥️ Today's Slide Deck

Short, on-the-board pacing slides — project these to follow along. (The full details are in the handout above, not here.)

Day 1

⬇️ Open / download this slide PDF

Day 2

⬇️ Open / download this slide PDF

📚 Key Words

Character Panel: Photoshop's panel for controlling font, size, tracking, leading, and other letter-level type settings.
Paragraph Panel: Photoshop's panel for controlling alignment and spacing at the paragraph level.
Tracking: Letter spacing applied evenly across a range of text.
Convert to Shape: Turning live, editable text into a graphic outline -- useful for custom lettering effects but no longer editable as text.

✅ What Your Finished Work Should Include

Typographic poster scored with a rubric: at least 4 typography settings used intentionally (not by accident), legible, and one text-to-shape conversion present.

Exit Ticket: Name one Character or Paragraph panel setting you used and explain the effect it had on your poster.

📊 Before You Leave

Quick, anonymous class check-in -- takes less than a minute.

Class Check-In

📁 Portfolio Update — Once a Week

Once a week (e.g. every Friday, or your class's last meeting of the week), add your best finished or in-progress work to a running portfolio folder with a 1-2 sentence caption: what it is, what skill or standard it shows. This becomes your formal Google Sites portfolio in Unit F -- keep it current all year so you're not scrambling right before your PBAT and portfolio review.

✍️ Example description for your Google Sites portfolio (fill in YOUR blanks -- don't just copy this):

For this piece, I made ______________ (name what you made) for “Typography in Photoshop.” This project asked: “How do we control typography precisely inside Photoshop using the Character and Paragraph panels?” I used Character Panel by ______________ (explain how you used it in THIS piece). The hardest part was ______________, and I solved it by ______________. I'm proud of ______________ because ______________.

🎓 ACP Exam Prep

This lesson connects to the Photoshop Adobe Certified Professional exam: Domain 4: Creating and Modifying Visual Elements

🔗 Want to Learn More?

Adobe Photoshop — Type Basics

🚀 The Extra Mile

Cross-Class Connection: The same precise-formatting discipline an English or Journalism class demands for properly typeset copy.

Career Connection: Typesetting precision is tested directly in the ACP exam's Domain on type control.

Go further -- turn this into a portfolio piece:

Typeset a full magazine-style article page (real text from an English class essay) with proper hierarchy, kerning, and leading. Start here: flow in the raw, unformatted text and read through it once to mark where headers and pull quotes belong before you touch kerning or leading.
Design a poster where the typography alone, with zero imagery, tells the whole story. Start here: write your message as one plain sentence, then decide which single word becomes the largest, before opening any design software.