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Brian Coale

Brian Coale

Creative Director / Marketing Manager for Casey Printing

Recent Posts by Brian Coale:

Topics: Design Tips Free Template Download

How to Create a Trifold Brochure in Word Online

Brian Coale

Ever need to nail something in with the flat side of a wrench? Word Online is definitely not the recommended tool for doing high-level graphic design, but sometimes we need to work with the tools (and the budget) that we have. So to help you with that, I'm going to show you how to create a trifold brochure using Microsoft's free Word Online tool. If you have the Adobe Creative Suite, I recommend you have a look at our InDesign tutorial.

Topics: Design Tips Print

5 Tips for Designing on Newsprint

Brian Coale

Newsprint is a highly-economical non-archival paper that best-known for its widespread use by news publishers, high-frequency magazines, classified publications, handbooks, phone books, textbooks, journals, guides, manuals and a variety of other common print products. Despite the recent decline in print publishers, newsprint is still widely used in many modern print applications.

Topics: Design Tips Free Template Download

How to Create a Z-Fold Brochure in Illustrator CC (Free Template)

Brian Coale

There's no doubt that the tri-fold or letter-fold brochure is one of the most popular brochure formats we see being used today, but one format that tends to get overlooked is the z-fold brochure. In this tutorial, we'll be looking at the basics of how to create a z-fold brochure in Adobe Illustrator CC. But first:

Topics: Adobe Design

How to Create a Newsletter in InDesign

Brian Coale

Sometimes the most difficult thing about starting a newsletter is... well... starting the newsletter. We have our contributors, we know what our goals are, we know who our audience is, and we know when we want to start, but we still have to build the thing.

Well here at CASEY we're not just great at printing newsletters, we have a lot of experience designing them as well, and know I'm going to share with you the basics of how to create a newsletter in InDesign.

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

 Download The InDesign Template ›  Talk to an Expert ›

Topics: Typography

Typography Shop Talk: Web Design vs. Graphic Design

Brian Coale

Even if you've never heard of the term “Shop Talk,” chances are still very good that you've heard shop talk, or may have even participated in it yourself. In a nutshell, shop talk is the jargon specific to an occupation or special interest. One common example of shop talk you may have participated in is sports jargon. Inning, Safety, Punt, Quarterback, Strike, Goal, Ball, Foul, Out, Steal, Error and so on. Photographers may refer to F-stops, Focal Lengths, ISO, Shutter Speeds & Megapixels, while designers may talk about Color Spaces, Color Theory, Wireframes, Mood Boards, Levels, Pixel Depth, Strokes and Fills. Whatever your profession or interest, there's likely some Shop Talk associated with it.

Today we're going to focus on Typography, and the curious case of two different trades that use their own very different Shop Talk to describe very similar concepts: Web Designers and Graphic Designers.

Topics: Print

Understanding the Standard PDF Export Settings

Brian Coale

Here at the shop we get this question surprisingly often: “What PDF settings should I use in my export, Standard Quality, High Quality or Press Quality?" This is typically in reference to the export or 'save as' options for PDFs available in Adobe InDesign, Illustrator or Photoshop, but can also pertain to any software that makes use of the standard profiles found in Acrobat Distiller. So now some of you may be asking:

Topics: Social Media

Why You Should Stop Selling on Facebook

Brian Coale

Let's face it, the commercialization of Facebook is here. You can't log in without seeing the latest “#1 selling app that all your friends play," and you can't log out without seeing Flo the Progressive Girl selling you auto insurance. Suggested posts and sponsored ads abound in the modern Facebook landscape, and marketers are both cringing at and flocking towards Facebook's ad manager. Everyone wants a piece of the Facebook audience pie (more than 1.3 billion active monthly users), but many have no idea how to make it work for them. Therefor, I have some very basic advice that I hope will steer you in the right direction:

Topics: Marketing

Humanizing Your Marketing Efforts with Humor

Brian Coale

If you've been keeping up on the midterm elections, you might've noticed that several of the political candidates this year have tried to use humor, in some form or another, in their political ads. From Terry Lynn's “Really” ad to Mitch McConnell's “What Rhymes with Alison Lundergan Grimes?” it seems that serious politicians everywhere have been trying to wisecrack their way into the poll booth. So why have serious politicians professing to have serious stands on serious issues taken such a frivolous approach to campaigning?

The answer is simple, really: the ads are an attempt to humanize the candidate and relate to the constituency. By showing their audience that they're human — that they laugh too, that they like to have fun and poke fun — they're shaking off the image of the power-hungry bureaucrat  who's only interest is self-gain and power, and they're building affinity towards an otherwise dry topic.

Topics: Marketing

Seeing the Whole Picture: Thinking Outside the Box

Brian Coale

“Think Outside the Box” is likely one of the most over-used and cliché marketing terms still in use today. Just hearing someone say it can elicit groans from other marketers and suspicion from prospects, but there is a perfectly valid reason for the excessive popularity of the term. It embodies the idea that to get the most out of your marketing efforts, you need to see the whole picture.

Topics: Opinion

Halloween: Origins, Spooky Tales, Retail & Marketing.

Brian Coale

There are many tales and traditions that surround the October 31st holiday of Halloween. These customs and stories have evolved over time until today where — particularly in North America — the holiday has become a huge retail and marketing success. But it was not always this way. The roots of this holiday favorite are steeped in ancient spiritual beliefs and ominous superstition, and although many of the opinions of how Halloween was started are contradictory, we've done our best to make sense of it and highlight some of Halloween's more interesting historical references.