Design a Tri-Fold Brochure
This tutorial walks you through setting up a standard letter-sized tri-fold brochure document complete with the CORRECT sizes for your individual panels.
Watch Part Two
This beginner tutorial covers the entire design of a tri-fold brochure with practical tips that takes your brochures from boring to gorgeous in under 1 hour.
Planning Your Publications with a Storyboard
Hi designers! I'm super excited to share a behind the scenes look at my current workflow for planning publications. You'll see the tools I use - including my custom storyboard - in client meetings to quickly plan out the content needs for a magazine and how I use this plan to quickly start the design process.
This method has been life-changing for:
- Client meetings where we are just starting the publication planning process
- Quick mockups of layout options
- Highlighting what content I have available and what I still need
- Working out different content flow options
- Client sign-off and approvals
There are links and other helpful goodies below!
►Storyboard Template
►GoodNotes App *
STORYBOARDS FOR PHOTOGRAPHERS:
↠ Plan your client photo books before designing them
↠ Create a high or low fidelity mockup of your portfolios
STORYBOARDS FOR DESIGNERS:
↠ Plan all content aspects of your publications such as magazines, programs, bulletins and more
↠Create a high or low fidelity mockup of your portfolios
STORYBOARDS GENERAL USES:
↠ Print a blank version of the template pages and hand write your content plan
↠ Use the divider lines to plan available ads sizes, images, text content and more
↠ Drop in photos for a high fidelity mockup
↠ Use colored rectangles to mark ads, images and placeholders
*IOS only. Try Microsoft's OneNote for other tablets. It lets you insert a PDF and write on it in a similar fashion as GoodNotes.
How to Design a Book Cover Jacket in InDesign
Learn How to Quickly Import Character Styles From any InDesign Document
Did you know you can import character styles from any InDesign document? As long as the document is using character styles, you can import them into any current or new InDesign document. This is a great way to save time recreating styles, allows you to maintain consistency across documents and gets you up and running much faster with the styles you love to use again and again!
You’ll Learn:
- How to quickly import character styles from any InDesign document
- Use cases for this technique
- How to format character styles for a menu
Let's Create an Event Program Booklet
In this in-depth tutorial, you will learn how to set up a standard event program, add photos, style text and export your final design for either printing professionally or in-house!
This lesson is perfect for beginners and anyone tasked with designing church bulletins, recital programs or any special event program. This tutorial is full of awesome tips to get you started with InDesign.
You’ll Learn:
- How to import photos and text
- Style your text and save those styles for easy access with Character Styles
- How to work with and style tabs
- Use gradient fades on an image
- How to export your final document for printing in-house or via a professional printer
Duplicate Elements Quickly in InDesign w/ Step & Repeat
Ever find yourself needing to duplicate a text box or object across your InDesign document? I needed to do this with a set of custom-sized labels and the Step & Repeat function made this process so much easier! Dive into this quick tip tutorial to see it in action.
You’ll Learn:
- How to duplicate text boxes using the Step & Repeat function in InDesign
- Duplicate different items in one document
- Apply custom settings for complete control of your duplicated items
- Perfect for labels!
How to Design a Calendar in InDesign
It's that time again when we prep to say goodbye to one year and welcome the next. Why not enter the new year in style with a custom calendar! In this lesson, discover how to design a calendar in InDesign.
You'll Learn:
- How to format your calendar in InDesign
- Insert an image
- Work with tables
- Save your calendar for professional or printing in-house
Let's Create a 3 Page Magazine Spread in InDesign
Hello designer! This in-depth tutorial is minimally edited so you can follow along with my entire workflow for a 3 page magazine spread with a full page ad. This includes goofs we are bound to hit along the way because not everything works the way you expect when you are designing!
Enjoy bonus nuggets of info as I make decisions on color, layout and complimentary design elements.
YOU'LL LEARN HOW TO DESIGN A MAGAZINE SPREAD AND:
- How to setup a 3 page magazine spread with an additional full page ad
- How to make decisions based on the images available
- How to flow text from one page to another
- How to size an image across spreads
- How to pick up color inspiration from your images
- How to setup a simple magazine footer on a master page
- How to format a two-column text box
- How to style a block-quote
- How to design a full page ad on the fly
- How to creatively crop and place images
- How to create a gradient fade on light images to place text on top
Looking for more magazine layout tips? Dive into these in-depth tutorials.
— Magazine Feature Article Layout in InDesign
— Understanding Magazine Signature & Page Count
— Magazine Article Text Tips
Understanding Page Count & Signatures in Magazines
You start designing your magazine or publication, add pages as needed only to get to the Print to Booklet time and realize you don't have enough pages. What gives right?
This tutorial will drastically change the way you start your publication designs and help you keep your page count in check from the very beginning.
Here's what you'll learn:
- Make sure you always have the correct page count for your booklet with my number one pro tip.
- Find out what printer signatures are, how they affect your magazine page count and why we use them as designers.
Looking for more booklet and magazine tips? Dive into these in-depth tutorials.
— Booklets in InDesign
— Adobe Distiller & Print to Booklet Tips
Tour My InDesign & Photoshop Workspaces
Here's your chance to see how I set up my InDesign & Photoshop workspaces. My method is geared toward the multi-tasking designer, photographer and web designer across a variety of screen sizes and setups.
I have dual monitor setups in my office, a widescreen in my home office and a laptop for on the go. I am also working in a variety of projects from editing photos to mocking up web designs and working on publications. My workspaces accommodate this sporadic work style, offering a complete and efficient workflow.
Watch the video to recreate my InDesign & Photoshop workspaces and continue below for a brief overview of how to create your own workspaces.
Workspace Basics
Working with Panels
- To dock a panel, drag it by its tab into the dock, at the top, bottom, or in between other panels.
- To dock a panel group, drag it by its title bar (the solid empty bar above the tabs) into the dock.
- To remove a panel or panel group, drag it out of the dock by its tab or title bar. You can drag it into another dock or make it free-floating.
Moving Panels
- As you move panels, you see blue highlighted drop zones. These indicate areas where you can move the panel. For example, dragging panels to dock left of the tool bar will highlight in a vertical blue line on the far left. Docking panels below other panels will highlight with a horizontal line between the panels. If you drag to an area that is not a drop zone, the panel floats freely in the workspace.
- Note: The position of the mouse (rather than the position of the panel) activates the drop zone, so if you can’t see the drop zone, try dragging the mouse to the place where the drop zone should be.
- To move a panel, drag it by its tab.
- To move a panel group, drag the title bar.
- If you don't see a panel, you can open it from the Window drop down menu.
Learn more about workspaces from Adobe.
Let me know your preferred workspace setup in the comments!