Magazine Cards

The first Bind-In card was designed using Adobe Indesign. For this font side of the card, I had the option of producing it in Quark or Indesign. I chose indesign mainly because I just like the program better. Quark has been very well liked, for its simplicity, but I find that Quark can almost be too simple, that you don’t know where to find any of the tools, and then you end up thinking that you simply can’t do that alteration because they don’t have the tools to do it.

I made the document 5.5 by 4 inches. Then I used the rectangle tool and set up the basic outline of the card, creating the center 2 boxes (the outside one stroked at a higher thickness than the inside one), the postage box (also stoked) and the percentage saved box(filled). Then I used the line tool to create the first line of each bar code. Then I copied the bars that I made and pasted however many i needed to complete each bar code. I did this mainly so that all the lines would be the exact same time, and it would take me less time to accomplish.

Next, I added all of the text boxes, and finding the correct font was the most difficult part of this project. After finding, the correct fonts, I typed in exactly what the original card stated and then I free transformed text boxes so that the look and spacing of the text matched the original.

The second Bind-In card is the backside of the first image, and was also produced in Indesign.

First step was to use the rectangle tool and make the entire background yellow matching it as close as possible to the original. Then I measured the spacing of the pink border and used the ruler tool in Indesign to space it correctly with the original. To make the pink boarder, I used the rectangle tool filling it with the pink color. Then I copied the first box I made and pasted each one, and then moved it in place. This also saved time, and made sure all the boxes were the same, just like the bar code on the front.

Then I opened a photoshop document and created the big black arrow using photoshop tools. I inserted a black arrow and then warped it using the transform tool to make it look just like the original. I saved it as a PDF and then placed it in the Indesign document.

Next, I added all of the small check boxes using the rectangle tool and stroked the small rectangle boxes. Then the lines were created, using the line tool and also copying and pasting.

Lastly, all of the text was added, matching it as best as I could to the original Bind-In card.

The last image, is another copy of the backside of the first image, but this time created in Quark. Basically, this card was created in Quark very similar as the one in Indesign, using the rectangle tools, stroking, filling with certain colors, using the line tool, copying, pasting, inserting the arrow from a PDF file image that I created using photoshop, and then adding the font and moving and transforming text boxes to fit into place as best as possible.

I didn't have many issues creating these cards as I know both Quark and Indesign very well by now. Mostly, the entire project was just a lot of trial and error, measuring, and matching fonts and sizes to the original as best of my ability. This was a very time consuming project, but I think it was very beneficial, and helped me fine tune my skills and my knowledge of the programs.