Design Your Own Event Flyer

1. Introduction: Hey, welcome. My name's Amy and I want to put together this class to show anyone, even complete beginners how to create a flyer. Don't worry. You don't have any breakfast I experience to be learned Design theory along. I'll be doing the screen casts and it will be Photoshopped. That's a program I'm most comfortable and you can use photo shop for the open source and free program called him Tempus, similar to the functionality of flower shop or with a different interface. I mean, for this class to be program agnostic and accessible to all. So no need to worry about purchasing quarter shop if you don't have access to it. I made varies, flowers and invitations during my years since I graduated from design school. While we live in an era where things were becoming more and more digital, there will always be a need for printed flyers. In this class, you learn how to make design and eye catching fires like these so you won't have to resort , putting together a clipboard in text and Microsoft word next time you advertise something, if you have an idea, you can totally make it happen in the first section will be going over some program tools for using See there 2. Some Useful Program Tools to Start With: in this class. We're focusing on design theory and execution. Instead of spending a ton of time going over how to use tools, those can easily be learned. And there's tons of resource Is online already on how to use and master Photoshop or gimp? We're going to just touch on some commonly used tools and what will be most useful for making your flyer design? So I have open here. Um, a document just with a couple layers. The main powerhouse of a professional graphics program is definitely the layer pallet. Uh, what you see here, the name layers is pretty self explanatory because it literally lets you keep elements separated in a stack. So show. You know what that looks like? Multiple things. I have a color layer here. Have a black and white layer. Um, so you can see that looks like in addition to this, each layer has a blending mode option, which means it controls how the layer reacts with the one below it. So, for example, I have this color on a multiply, um, blend just a blue Phil. So you can see I put it on It, um creates that effect and darkens the image along with like a weight filter, it becomes completely blue toned. Play around with layer, affects a bit and get a fuel, Um, for the different effects they create. So another thing you were using a lot is the color palette. You'll find it looks like two squares on top of each other, so it allows you to toggle between a foreground and the background color. Uh, show you an example with ingredients. If I have this yellow and red color, Um, so it's gonna use those two colors, for example, to create ingredient, have something like this. You highlight it. You can change the color from whatever you have here. It's not very pleasing. I'm going to put back to wait layer masks. So speaking of layers, um, they will become your new best friend, mess our way to a race or remove part of an image or element without it being at all destructive. So show you se we want Teoh a race. We turn this off, um, part of the trees in this image or the top half so young, too layer mask, which is in photo shop this Ah, we'll square with the shape cutout. Um, And then you're gonna grab your pink burst tool. You said so once you activate the mask tool, um, it's going Teoh, change the available colors to black and white. Um, what that means is black is erasing it. White is ending it back. So you can see, for example, when they had a really big brush. If we wanted to remove this whole half area, you know, we'll work on getting that to be better, But put it back. And if you decide Oops, I want some of that back. You can just switch color palette And there you go. Yeah, and it all back. Who? Um, you can also use selection tools with layer masked Onley. Select a certain area as well, so that's pretty neat. Um, another selection tool that you might be using frequently is the lasso or in gimp. It's called the scissors tool. So there's a couple different lassos. The one that I find most useful is a magnetic lasso tool, so that lets you select certain. Um, it kind of follows the edge of something. So you see on here recognizes the edge of this. So if we wanted to cut out the sky. You could do something like this. And Ah, I love you're masking it. You have a cleaner cut there. Okay, um, one last thing will go over in the tools. Our guides, so long as you have your guides visible. Our rulers, um, and drag them out. It's good if you're trying a line up text. I'm gonna put that text layer on again. Um, if you want a lineup text to the edge of that, um, something I usually dio is quit a vertical guide. 50% to get on a center point there. Oh, so that's it for the tools coming up. Next. We're going, Teoh, create the document and set it up. 3. Setting Up Your File: first, we're going to quickly go over how to set up a document for print, but we'll set this up to be the size of a standard sheet of paper, 8.5 by 11 inches. When you're planning on a designed to be printed, you want to make sure you're designing in the correct resolution. Resolution is the measure of pixels on your screen. So 72 d P I, which is dots per inch or P P I, which stands for pixels per inch, is typically used for web while 300 is used for print. Resolution is super important because you never want increase something to be larger than it originally is. It will lose quality and appear pixelated, so you can always scale something down in size but not up. So I've actually created this in 72 to show you, um, how it will be different in the correct resolution, which is 300 peopie I. So this is the file, um, 100% you can see the with is pretty small here, and then I'm going to increase it to be the correct resolution. You can see how much the pixel values increased and the file appears much larger on the screen. Um, you can see the both the scroll bars to see how largest actually appears on the screen. No, I have a 72 PP. I, um, resolution file here with just stop for a minute. So if you designed something in 72 pp I and try to print it, it would appear to be correct. Quality on the screen like this is right now, but it would actually print out in a lower resolution because there is essentially not enough dots per inch to show the correct amount of detail. So I'm going Teoh now increase it to 300 like I did, um, in the blank file. So now you can see at 300 peopie I that this is not high quality at all. Next thing you want to pay attention to is color mode. RGB is the color space for screens, while cm like a is used for print. If you're designing something that will be used for both print and the Web, recommend designing it first and rgb and saving a copy with the colors change to see m y que afterwards you might get some slight color variations when you switch the mode over from RGB to see him like a. But it usually won't be that drastic, and you can edit colors were necessary and a quick note. For gimp users. There is no Sam like a color mode out of the box, but there is a plug in called separate that adds Sam Wyche a support. So make sure when you're starting your flyer, you're setting the color mode to see M y que because you'll be printing it. 4. Typography: Since this is an event flyer, you'll be needing quite a bit of wording and typography to get your message out there. There are two ways you can get typefaces free and premium or, um, otherwise known as paid. We're going to focus on free funds for this class. Two of my favorite places to find quality free typefaces are Google fonts and font swirled . Another popular one is different. One of the most important things when you're working on the text in your flyer is having clear content hierarchy. You want to make sure the most important information, like the main heading, is the largest and stands out the most. While other details like time and place, read a secondary. If all the wording has the same way to it, then it will be hard for someone to look at the flyer and pick out the most important information, because everything will seem on the same level of importance and be overwhelming. Who here is an example of a bunch of text that's pretty much all the same size? It's stylized a little differently from each other, but you can see directly how this appears as kind of a giant block of text. Not sure what you should be looking at first and what's most important and what's least important. So now let's talk about readability, the one designing your flyer. Make sure the text says proper contrast with what's behind it. This right here the title of outdoor movie night. Um, you can see how the black text is not providing a lot of contrasts at all with this, um, blue toned background. So that's not readable in a color sense. Another part of readability is over using really stylized typography, and we'll talk more about that leader. You can see if I were to change this text. Teoh White How much of a difference that makes You can also use tech shadows or outlines if you need to give your text a boost. But definitely don't rely on using a tech shadow for readability. Here is a drop shadow. Here you can see it will take some practice to get a good handle on what kind of fonts work well together. Definitely avoid using too many funds in your design. How many's to money? Trez Stick to four or less. Also don't design around the font in other words you're designed shouldn't rely on a particular font instead to let your layout be the focus of the design. Good typography comes with time and practice the main categories of typefaces or sorted by Sarah If San Serif and Display Sarah fonts have decorative flourishes added to the ends of strokes, while display fonts include Hendron and more fancier styles that you be used sparingly. So this example of the fonts World website and you can see how have different font classifications that you consort by. You'll see San Sarah, Sarah Display Um, and display includes a lot of things. Um, here's an example of to display fonts. They're both have a similar handwritten script style, Um, and you can see why they should be used sparingly. Definitely pair a more stylized font with a plainer fun. Check out some font parent websites. If you need inspiration, this one's called Font pair dot Co. You can see they have some really cool examples and suggestions for herring typefaces together 5. Color: It's a good idea to have a color palette in mind at the beginning of designing your flyer. When you don't, it's easy to get carried away and use way too many colors, or just pick random ones to use by planning at the beginning, you can get an overall view if the color scheme is harmonious or not. Well, this is my example color scheme right here. I put them out in swatches to get an overall view of the scheme. For some inspiration, you can check out sites such as Adobe Color or Color Hunt. Looking through some of these, you can see how different colors and groups of colors evoke varying emotions. For example, you wouldn't want to use a bright like this color scheme for a flyer for something hospital related. You'd want something more calming, such as blue tones Adobe color Disney because it has a lot of color schemes submitted by users, but it also has if you go into the create option, you can look at which different colors are monochromatic, complimentary different shades of specific colors, Tree adds. You can see this is a really good visual example, so definitely play around with this tool. So if I go Teoh complimentary, for example, it locks you into colors that are directly opposite the color wheel, and then, if you like, use it, you can grab the hex values directly from it and put it into your product. 6. Imagery: next, we'll talk about image options and where to get them. You can use your own are worker photos, say Hamrin. Bid a text, or you can make your own vector image by free handing or using a reference image. Now here is an example of a stock photo. If I wanted to make graphic of a car so you can use the pen tool here on a truce, the image onda. I can change it to my liking, and after you've completed the shape, you can also edit it. That's the cool thing about the pen tool. You can totally change the points, however you'd like, and you will get a vector image, which is an image that retains its quality. You can seal up, you can scale it down, and it won't change at all. On the other side of Vector images are raster images, which are images that are made up of pixels. Never, ever skew a raster image larger than its original size. You'll be able to tell the blurriness. I promise an example of a raster images, a photo taken on your camera like this one I have here, or the image of the car that we were using as a reference image for your premium stock photos are great option to use for your flyer design. Make sure they're really free and that you're not taking image that you don't have the rights to. Here's a couple stock photo sites that I really like. This is pixels and unspool ash. Besides photos, there are tons of graphic resource is out there to use for your flyer. You can search for vector elements that you'll be able to download and utilize. This is a cycled back TZ, which has a lot of vector art, that you can download a news. In addition to vector elements, you can use rest or clip art such as icons. Here's an icon I'm downloaded of a film reel to use for my flyer. Don't feel restricted by trying to make all parts of the design yourself definitely utilized. Resource is graphic. Design is all about combining elements in new and interesting ways. Don't be afraid to get creative Scan things from old magazines. Rip pieces of paper can become textures. Here's a grun check. Scher I downloaded to show you what textures look like. I'm gonna let you in on a little secret. All professional graphic designers that use resource is this is the folder on my computer with all my different resource is organized by categories, so I have brushes, icons, pattern stock, photos, textures and different you elements. 7. Layout Basics & Sketching: I like to write out all the info that needs to be on the flyer to see what I'm working with before arranging it, right it somewhere outside of your sketch. Ask yourself the questions of who, What, when, Where? Why, how? Make sure you're covering all of those bases with your information for mine. I have Who kids welcome. So it's all ages. What outdoor movie Night and the name of the movie. When. Time. Andy. Where. Tanner Park. Why? Just a fun summer activity. How how much it's free, what to bring. Bring a chair B Y O B, and the event is made possible by a sponsor. Once you have all of your information written down, label the most important things. So what it is date, time and place. Put a bracket around that while sketching out your layout. You want to try and have a single focus point in your design. If someone is looking at this for only a split second, what information do you want them to get from it? It might be a strong visual, that representative of the event or simply the name of the event. While sketching out your layout, you want to try and have a single focus point in your design. If someone is looking at this for only a split second, what information do you want them to get from it? It might be a strong visual that's representative of the event or simply the name of the event. My focus point is going to be what the event is. So outdoor movie night. I'm going to start with that first, I added. If you can't tell what this is, I decided I want to add a little detail of a film riel visual. To make my headline stand out even more, you can use lines or bars to represent text instead of writing out all of the information verbatim. If you're not sure if you remember what that info is supposed to be, you can make a note of it. So on my flyer, this is going to be the name of the movie. Keep working on your sketch. It doesn't have to be super detailed or perfect. The idea here is to give yourself a template of where everything should go and quickly work out creative ideas so you can focus on the details and flushing it out later digitally. I'm just going to draw some dash lines to represent that. This will be a background image, and this wavy line here is about, uh, where the main focus of the background images. Take a step back and look at your sketch as you're working on it. Hold it up away from you and see where your eye goes. Look at the balance and see if there's too much going on in one area. You want to avoid filling every inch of the design with something. It should have some breathing room. This is cold white space. The balance between elements and negative space is what makes an aesthetically pleasing composition. Don't fear the whites piece. This is the white space in my flyer and where the background image I'll be using will be most visible. Once you feel you have a solid sketch, you can switch back to the computer and start designing it digitally. 8. Putting it all Together : Let's start with the background for my design that I've been working with. I decided to use an image of a park in the background and I want to alter it to be blue toned to represent nighttime to match the outdoor movie 19. I already have my focus point and main headline in here. So going Teoh at a fill color you why he had a new adjustment layer Direct that below. I'm going to add a sheep behind my text to ground it a bit, using my gods to get where I want it and also going to add a drop shadow to my text. Pretty subtle. Keep referencing your sketch and make it come to life. Remember when we were going over the mask tool? This is the perfect opportunity for that. I want to replace the letter o in movie with a film reel icon of my icon were here is gonna put it off to the side and also docket to the bottom in photo shop. No. Okay, so since my original icon color is black, we're going to add a color overlay layer style to make it wait to match the rest of the text. It's going to use the move tool. Get in place just like I did with the rest of the text. I'm going to add a drop shadow. Teoh. Separate it from the rest of the letters. You can see the difference here. I'm going to make my flyer be a bit representative of actual movie poster with most of the secondary text towards the bottom condensed. I'm gonna grab my type tool. - Sure , kids. Welcome. So I'm going Teoh scale this whole line of text down, um, using the transform tool, which is command or control. T. I want to go back to the importance of planning at your content for a second in my flyer, the name of the movie and the main heading Outdoor movie Night, which we've talked about a lot if that was switched. So the name of the movie Ferris Bueller's Day Off. If that was in large bowl type instead that might be confusing. Someone could scan the flyer and see them will be title and assume it's just an advertisement from the movie being shown in the theater. The unique part of this event is that it's outdoors, and that's why I chose that to be the main heading. Also, as you're working, you might find that you want to change things up from your sketch. And that's totally okay. Something I changed in mind is offsetting the main heading. I took the whole thing and rotated it. As you can see, I'm going turn off this layer this week. Um, was like this in my sketch, and I wanted to you make it offset. I also changed the shape around from my original sketch. I brought it in on the sides to provide a more layered visual can. This is the before, uh, my sketch looks something like this. And I brought the sides in, like so. Now that you've learned to put it all together, let's see your projects.