I just uploaded a video tutorial series on YouTube on how to create a brochure in InDesign. For this series, I’m taking a brochure Beth created in Pages and I’m re-creating as a lesson in using InDesign. I find tutorials creating something “real world” to be more helpful than a generic lesson and I’ve tried to explain each of the steps as well as the features of InDesign that I used. For those of you already very familiar with InDesign, this will probably be more basic that you need. My target audience here are folks who are generally working in Word or in Pages and want to move to InDesign where there’s more flexibility than the basic word processors allow.
Episode 1: Intro and Header
In this first episode, I’ll tackle the trickiest part of this brochure; the header in which there’s a picture that is cropped to follow the contours of a ribbon graphic. This is a technique that you will be able to apply in lots of different ways in your documents.
Episode 2: Layout and Graphical Elements
In the 2nd episode I’ll focus on the layout of the brochure. Giving some thought to the layout and setting up your document with distinct areas can help you make your brochures a little more professional. I’ll show you how to use guides and frames to set up your document so that it’s much easier to fill in text and pictures.
Episode 3: Adding Text and Pictures
Now that we have the header and layout set up in the document, it’s time to add the document copy and pictures. In this 3rd episode, I’ll show you how to use the InDesign interface to fill out your brochure. InDesign is different from your typical word processor, and if you’re new to the program, finding the tools to do simple things can be tough. This video hits on the basics of adding text, sizing, changing colors, changing characters and other formatting functions.
Episode 4: Finishing Touches
In this last episode, I will finish up the brochure with the remaining sub-headings, text boxes and formatting to get a final product.
I hope that you’ve found this project helpful.