How to create a business card using Adobe InDesign CS4 1. Open InDesign (pink icon in your dock with ID on it) and click on CREATE NEW DOCUMENT. **You will need to download the Northeast logo from your teacher’s website before you begin and place it into your “yourlastname_project1” folder.**
2. Change the Page Size to 3.5 in. width and 2 in. height and margins should be set at .25 in for top, bottom, left and right.
3. Select the text tool and type in your first and last name and your title of Student. Be sure to change the font to Optima Bold for your name and Optima Regular for your title. These should be 10 points. You must highlight the text you want to change and then assign the font, the weight and the size once it is selected.
4. While the text box is selected, go to EDIT>COPY to copy the text box.
5. Then you will paste the text box by going to EDIT>PASTE at the top Control Panel under EDIT.
6. Next you will copy and paste one more time so you have a total of 3 text boxes on your page. You will type in the information below and align the type as shown. Remember you have to highlight the text with the text tool so you can assign the fonts, sizes etc. Use the Selection Tool (black arrow, the first tool at the top in your tool box.) Use it to move the 2 additional text boxes into place. You will also go to the toolbox and select the Rectangle Frame tool and draw a box in the position indicated below.
7. With the box still selected, to go FILE>PLACE and navigate to your Master Folder and Project 1 subfolder “yourlastname_project1” where the logo you placed in earlier is living.
8. See below where the logo should be living…
9. Once you’ve placed the N logo in the rectangular box, go to OBJECT > FITTING > FIT CONTENT PROPORTIONALLY. This will place your logo within the box size. You can adjust if it’s not what you want and then go back and redo this step.
10. Once the logo is placed, you are going to add some graphic bars that will bleed off the edges of the business cards. These elements bring the business card together using repetition and symmetry. Go to the Rectangle Tool in your toolbox and create a thin box just below the word Student. The default will give you a black border.
11. Click on your Swatches panel and open it up all the way by dragging down so you can see the colors available. Select the red swatch. Notice how the box outline become red. Notice in the Swatches panel in the upper left hand corner there is a small box with a red line drawn through it and on top of it is a black outline. This is where you will “stroke” and “fill” your boxes. A stroke is the outline to a box. The fill is what is inside the box.
12. Select the Fill icon (by selecting it, it will come forward and the stroke will go behind.) Select the red swatch again. So, you should have a red stroke and red fill for a graphic red bar, located right under your name and student title.
13. While you have the red graphic box you just created, you should COPY > PASTE two more times so you can use them in the other parts of your business card layout as shown below. Make sure you drag the sides of them off of the edge of the page (the black line on the outside) to indicate a bleed.
14. Below is the completed business card. You are to create this card.
15. After you create the card above, you will insert another page to the document. On the 2nd page that you add, you will design your own business card. In your PAGES panel, you will click and select INSERT PAGES.
16. A window will pop up and you will add 1 page as show below. Click OK.
17. Below is what your second page will look like. It is a blank page where you will add your information for another business card. You can search Google for examples of business cards. Be creative.
18. Once you are done, you should go to FILE > SAVE AS and save your file into your Master Folder > yourlastname_project1 folder.
19. When the window pops up, you should navigate to where your DOCUMENTS > First Lastname > yourlastname_project1 folder is on your computer. Save the file as Yourlastname_buscard.indd. Be sure to keep the .indd extension so the computer knows it’s an InDesign file and will know how to address it next time you open it.
20. After you have saved it as an InDesign file (.indd), you will go to FILE > EXPORT and export this same file as a PDF.
21. Make sure when you export that the PDF goes in the same folder as all of your other files for this project. The file name should be the exact same as the other one, but just with the .pdf extension. It is important that you keep the extensions for these files so the computer can understand how to work with them. NEVER DELETE EXTENSIONS!!!
22. A default window will pop up, click EXPORT and this will create your PDF for you.
23. At the end of this tutorial, you should have 1 InDesign file with 2 pages and 1 PDF of the exact same file with the 2 pages. The first page should contain the layout like is shown and another one designed uniquely by you using the same basic principles.
24. Wait for specific instructions on how your instructor wants you to turn in your files. 25. Congratulations! You just created your first InDesign business cards!