LEARNING CENTER

If you're a self-publisher, chances are good that you're designing your own books. Unfortunately the tools we use for writing, like Word, don't always make for great book design. This is a job for industry-standard tools like Adobe InDesign. The good news is that pricing for InDesign has become very reasonable recently, but the bad news is it's still difficult to use. So you might still need a little help to get started.

That's why we've put together this basic how-to. Now you can build a book in InDesign that you can use time and again on as many books as you like!

Before we get started, take advantage of the free template download so you can follow along. Or if you would rather have us design a custom template for you, hit the "Talk to an Expert" button.

When you're creating a layout for a flyer, magazine, brochure or even a business card, it's extremely important to to know where your content is so that it doesn't get too close to the edge or partially cut off. This can be difficult since the view on our screen can be very different than what we see on the final product. This is where guides, rulers and margins come in handy. You set a margin based on a real-world acceptable minimum distance from the edge, then keep your content inside that margin. Doing this will save you a lot of time and reliably result in better layouts.

If you're a designer or a publisher, or even if your a hobbyist, there's going to be a situation sooner than later where you're going to want to have an image, color or other graphic print all the way to the edge of your final printed product. This is known in the creative & printing circles as a "bleed." In this article I'm going to show you how to add a bleed to any Adobe InDesign, Adobe Illustrator or Adobe Photoshop document. So let's get started!

One thing we get asked a lot working in a commercial print shop is how files should be sent to us. Generally this strikes up a conversation about file types, the software they're using, and how to make those files work with our workflow and presses to get the absolute best results. That's why I decided to somewhat demystify the process by providing 5 easy steps to create press-ready PDF files using Adobe InDesign. If you're not using Adobe InDesign, or you've rather have a more generalized info, have a look at our post How to Prepare Files for Print. Otherwise, read on.

Normally when supplying files to a printer or service provider, a PDF file does the trick, but there are situations in which you may need to provide a little more. For instance, if you need your printer or a design firm to make changes to your copy or graphical elements, a PDF is not a good choice. In these situations it's appropriate to supply "native files," which is shop talk for a copy of your original files, links and fonts.

It's happened to all of us at one time or another. You design something, it looks great on your screen, you get it back from your printer and... ugh! Your beautiful design has blurry, jagged-looking photos. What happened? More importantly, how do you make it NOT happen? In this article I'll walk you through the science of how image resolution works in print and on-screen to answer both of those questions. So you'll understand why your photos are blurry and learn how to prevent it from happening to you again. Let's dig in.

Whether you're a do-it-yourself-er, a creative hobbyist, or a professional designer, sometimes it's challenging wading through the sea of creative tools available today to pick the right one for your specific project. The default for most of us is to try to make it work with our go-to tools — the ones with which we are most familiar, but sometimes the software in our 'comfort zone' is not the best software for the job.

Let's face it, magazine design can be time-consuming and expensive. When start-up magazines first open their doors, money is tight, and keeping the budget skinny is important. Although you may not have the in-house staff to completely produce your magazine, understanding the process and being able to do some edits on your own can be a life saver. Even if you do have the in-house staff, it might be a challenge getting properly formatted files to the printer on-time and on-budget.

If this is you, and you have a Creative Cloud subscription (usually starting at about $70/mo for businesses), you can rein in expenses and creative control by building your own template. To help you with this challenge, I've put together this step by step tutorial.

In a world where digital marketing and advertising have become increasingly popular, brochures have managed to sustain their importance as a printed marketing channel. Portable, versatile and economical, brochures are an excellent way to convey company or product information.

Brochures are one of the most versatile and prolific marketing media in print today, but often times when we go about creating a brochure for our product our thinking can be a bit limited. Many of us tend to jump immediately to the popular Letter Fold (Tri-Fold) format. Although this is a great format, there are many others that may just be a better fit for your message. So what are the different kinds of brochures? Let's have a look.