There are three object styles that rule them all—three styles that should be in every designer’s toolbox because you’ll find yourself calling on them again and again no matter how simple or complex the project.
In this week’s InDesign Secrets video, Anne-Marie Concepción shows you how to build these styles from scratch in Adobe InDesign and use them to format images, callout lines, and photo credits.
This week’s free InDesign FX video shows yet another fun and easy look you can create by combining several transparency effects. This time we’re making bottle caps that you can adorn with your own designs or logos in Adobe InDesign.
The effect starts with a polygon with 24 sides and a small Star Inset value.
InDesign users have long desired a way to get a grayscale PDF out of InDesign, one with no color at all. And in InDesign CS6, Adobe finally lets you do this, right out of the box.
In this week’s InDesign Secrets video, David Blatner shows you how this works—and how to achieve the same effect even if you have a CS5 or earlier version of the program.
If you’ve watched a few of the videos in the InDesign FX series, you know how useful the Bevel and Emboss effect can be for creating all kinds of interesting looks. The versatile Bevel and Emboss tool allows you to apply both a shadow and a highlight to objects, unlike all the other transparency effects, which offer only a shadow or a highlight.
But one limitation you might encounter with Bevel and Emboss is the fact that you can add only one shadow and one highlight. So if you want to simulate multiple lights shining on an object, you have to come up with a workaround. One way is to use different colors and blending modes to create, in effect, two highlights or two shadows in a single effect.
Why are there no default gradient swatches in Adobe InDesign? The Swatches panel tricks us into thinking there are, but you really have to build them by hand. Here’s a tip for leaving your days of manual labor behind: steal your gradients from Illustrator. In this week’s InDesign Secrets video, Anne-Marie Concepción shows you how to commit “gradient larceny” in the Creative Suite.
If this week’s InDesign FX video leaves you with an “empty” feeling, don’t worry—that’s exactly what we’re aiming for, as we explore “no fill” effects in Adobe InDesign.
No one likes formatting prices, but in this week’s free InDesign Secrets video, Adobe InDesign guru David Blatner shows you how to add custom dollar signs and superscripts for your cents with one single paragraph style. The magic lies with nested styles and GREP styles. Let David show you how these work.
In this week’s InDesign FX video, we’re headed to the movies as I show how to create lettering that resembles a theater marquee.
This effect highlights one of the ideas I keep coming back to in the InDesign FX series: in order to make a realistic-looking effect, you have to start with a real-life reference. So before I did anything in Adobe InDesign, I searched the web for photos of theater signs. I found many examples with thick translucent red plastic letters, hung from two rails stretching across the signs horizontally.
