Adobe Creative Suite 4 Web

Whether they’re printing brochures, business cards or letterhead for businesses, or invitations and save-the-date cards for brides-to-be, copy shops provide a valuable service to clients who don’t have the resources to print items at home or in the office. Starting a copy shop requires purchasing or renting equipment that produces quality print jobs for clients in a timely matter. With many businesses handling their printing in-house, your copy shop needs to offer appealing benefits to encourage customers to give your shop a try. With knowledge of the print industry and targeted marketing to generate sales leads, your copy-shop business can be a profitable start-up.

1. Research the printing industry in general and in your immediate area. Find out which copy shops customers frequent, the types of services they offer and their pricing. Come up with a unique selling proposition (USP) that differentiates your business from your competition. Your USP will help you determine your target market, services and pricing.
2. Step 2

   Decide if you want to run your copy shop out of a home office or if you want to lease space. The decision to operate from home is feasible if you have space for copy shop equipment and room to store jobs once they’re completed. Using a home office also reduces your start-up costs, eliminating extra leasing expenses. Costs for utilities in your home may increase as a result of your copy shop operating from there.

3. Step 3

   Determine the types of copy services you’d like to offer customers and identify your target market. From handling the printing needs of students and brides to businesses and government agencies, your copy shop can offer a wide range of services. Services can include printing invitations, reports, handbooks, brochures, business cards, photographs, postcards and advertisements. Increase your sales potential by also offering such services as binding, tabbing, laminating, faxing and folding.

4. Step 4

   Research and select the equipment and supplies you’ll need to purchase for your copy shop. The equipment and supplies you need will be largely based on the types of services you plan to offer in your shop. At minimum, you’ll need to rent or buy a printer/photocopier combination that can handle large jobs in both black ink and color ink. Purchase desktop publishing and design software (e.g., Adobe Creative Suite, Microsoft Publisher, CorelDRAW, Quark) to easily open and print client files and make edits when necessary. Purchase paper in various sizes, colors and textures.

5. Step 5

   Develop a process for taking client requests for photocopying and printing jobs, as well as a method for tracking jobs and edits. Most copy shops allow customers to make online requests for convenience. Create a contract you can use with clients for each job they enlist your copy shop to complete.

6. Step 6

   Promote your copy-shop business in local publications through advertising. Attend local business association meetings to network and promote your business. Create a website that details your business services and contact information. Create business cards you can distribute to potential clients. Partner with businesses in your area who share the same target market as you.

The future will be filled with flying cars and robots. Well, not really. The world promised in the clean-edged worlds of tomorrow held the promise of life on the cutting edge of technology. Flying cars may not be here, but infusing your business with the same promise can be as simple as a logo turn. Use Adobe After Effects CS3 to make a spinning 3D logo to show clients that your business is innovative, competent and at the edge of technology.

Logo Turn

1. Step 1

   Go to “File>Import>File.” A window should open.

2. Step 2

   Select the finished logo file. Import it as footage and check off the JPEG sequence button. This should import the file into your project window.

3. Step 3

   Drag the image from the project window to the Timeline window. You can fix the composition size, frame rate, and time duration by going to “Composition> Composition Settings.”

4. Step 4

   Click on the white triangle scroll-down menu. You should now be looking at the word Transform. Here you will find many ways to animate or distort your image.

5. Step 5

   Click on the white triangle-scroll down menu for “Transform.”

6. Step 6

   Look for “Rotation.”

7. Step 7

   Click on the white stopwatch icon next to “Rotation.” This adds a keyframe diamond to the Timeline window. A keyframe is a marker that marks the beginning and end of a change.

8. Step 8

   Move the Time Indicator, which has a blue tab and a red line extending below it, to the end of the Timeline.

9. Step 9

   Click on the first zero after Rotation and type one. This indicates the amount of revolutions your logo does. The second numbers indicate the degrees.

10. Step 10

    Play the animation by hitting the space bar. The logo should turn counterclockwise.

Add 3D

11. Step 1

    Make the turn 3D by right-clicking on the image name on the Timeline.

12. Step 2

    Click the 3D layer. Using the same technique as before, click on the “Z Rotation Stopwatch” icon to erase its keyframes.

13. Step 3

    Add keyframes to the X Rotation to rotate the icon top to bottom.

14. Step 4

    Add keyframes to the Y Rotation to rotate the icon left to right.

ust exporting your magazine as a PDF file to duplicate what could appear in print ignores all of the interactive capabilities available in a PDF and other programs. This can engage the reader and provide additional value. If you use Adobe’s InDesign to design publications, use these features to insert interactivity that exports readily to Adobe Acrobat.

Hyperlinks

1. Step 1

   Define story descriptions on the magazine’s contents page, then open the “Hyperlinks” panel and select “New Hyperlink.” In the new menu that appears, name the link. For “Type,” select “Page,” then enter the page number where the story appears.

2. Step 2

   Create a new layer from the “Layers” panel to place notes, sidebars and images that appear when the cursor rolls over a button. With the new layer selected, place text or graphic objects. Click on the “eye” box in the layers panel to toggle the visibility of the new layer and to allow editing of the main layer.

3. Step 3

   Select the text frame or graphic object you added to the new layer, and from the “Object” menu, select “Interactive/Convert to Button.” In the general button options menu, for “Visibility in PDF,” choose “Hidden.” Name the button, but you don’t need to choose any “Behaviors.”

4. Step 4

   Use the “Button Tool” to draw a new button, such as an invisible rectangle over a word or a phrase. In the “Behaviors” for the new button, choose “Mouse Up,” “Show/Hide Fields,” but don’t choose any button as fields to show. Click “Add.” This keeps the pop-up text or graphic hidden in normal view.

5. Step 5

   Add a second behavior, “Mouse Enter” and “Show/Hide Fields” for when the cursor rolls over the button. Then, select the name of the button you created on the new layer. Click on the empty box next to the name until the you see the eye image, then click “Add.”

6. Step 6

   Add a third behavior, then click “Mouse Exit.” Select the button from the new layer again, but this time click on the box next to the name until you see the eye with a red diagonal line across it. This hides the pop-up text or object. Click “Add,” then click “OK” to enable the behaviors.

7. Step 7

   Insert a movie or a sound file by choosing “File/Place,”and when the browser window opens, select the intended media file. Click on the document page where you want to place the file. You can also drag the file directly from the desktop to the page.

8. Step 8

   Double-click the media object on the page to set its options, such as specifying a poster image to display on the page when the movie is not running, and showing the controller during play.

9. Step 9

   Export pages individually as PDFs to test interactivity. Be sure “Bookmarks,” “Hyperlinks” and “Interactive Elements” are checked in the “Export” menu. For “Multimedia,” choose “Embed All” to include all of the media in one file, or “Link All” to link to files on an accessible server. Use the same settings to export the entire document when you’re ready to publish.

With time at a premium these days, brochure templates offer a quick way to maintain your brand standards, while giving you flexibility to update your message and customize content based on customer data. Templates take the guesswork out of where to start, while leaving room for creativity. Using a brochure template enables you to build brand recognition by helping customers easily identify you. According to the Heidrick & Struggles survey of U.S. senior executives, the ability to optimize the efficiency of the marketing mix across their businesses and improving the consistency of sales and marketing communications rank among the top objectives for achieving growth.

How to Design a Brochure Template

1. Step 1

   Select your color palette. For ideas, try “Adobe Kuler,” where you can create, save and export your own color schemes or browse others. If you use the Adobe Creative Suite, you can import these palettes directly into the program.

2. Step 2

   Determine the size, shape and page count of your brochure template. If your brochure will bleed (i.e., print to the edge of paper), a commercial printer will use a larger sheet and trim it to the appropriate size. Ask your printer to suggest how many pages to arrange per sheet to maximize your space.

3. Step 3

   In the page layout program, set the margins, including bleeds. The standard setting for bleeds is usually 1/8 inch, but confirm this detail with your printer. To maintain a consistent layout and create a flow to the design, create a grid by setting the columns and horizontal guides to align components of your layout.

4. Step 4

   Select “Master Pages” in your program, and then begin your design. Add your images to the layout. You can find free artwork at Microsoft Clip Art Gallery, or you can search other royalty-free image sources, such as iStockPhoto or Shutterstock. Another option is to just include placeholder boxes, allowing the template to be customized at the time of use. Many of the publishing programs offer vector art options, such as boxes, lines, gradations, shapes and glyphs for use in your brochure.

5. Step 5

   For the copy, close the “Master Pages” and click on your document pages. Start by drawing text boxes and import “lorem ipsum” (or dummy text) into them. Several resources exist online to create paragraphs, sentences and bullets to use in your layout. Select your font style and size for each area of the template. As a general rule of thumb, limit the number of fonts to no more than two different types per layout. Keep readability in mind when setting size for the body copy. Use a different size font for headlines and subheads.

6. Step 6

   When you have completed your page, use “style sheet” settings for the copy. Select headings, subheads, bullet points and body copy and name a style for each different one. The “style” will capture the font, size, color, leading, spacing, kerning, tracking and other special settings, such as bullets.

7. Step 7

   Once you complete your pages, print out copies to review. Check for alignment, consistency, appropriate color settings and copy readability.

8. Step 8

   Save one normal copy as a backup. Then, save your brochure as a template. Go to “Save As” and select the appropriate template setting. Test the document by closing it and opening the new template brochure document.

Adobe Photoshop can be used to create two-dimensional animated video effects, even though it was designed as a software tool for still image enhancement and effects creation. If you have the time and patience, you can create multiple still image frames in Photoshop that are converted to a video sequence when opened in video editing software. This guide will show you how to create a short animation of text appearing to be typed on-screen using Photoshop Creative Suite 4 (CS4).

1. Open Photoshop. Select black for the background color by clicking on the Set Background Color icon in the Tools window and choosing black in the Color Picker dialogue box that pops up.
2. Step 2

   Create a new file by selecting “File” then “New” from the menu.

3. Step 3

   Select “Film & Video” from the Preset pull-down menu.

4. Step 4

   Select “HDTV 1080p/29.97″ from the Size pull-down menu.

5. Step 5

   Select “Background Color” from the Background Contents pull-down menu in the New dialogue box. Click “OK” to continue.

6. Step 6

   Note the frame display. Photoshop includes guides that appear as cyan-colored lines to indicate boundaries of the video frame. The guides are your “safe cutoff” edge, indicating the point where some monitors may crop the image.

7. Step 7

   Select the Horizontal Type Tool by pressing the “T” key. From the Text Properties menu that appears beneath the main menu, choose a bold font style and a font size of at least 150 points. Change the text color to yellow using the Text Properties color palette.

8. Step 8

   Open a text window by dragging your mouse with the type tool selected to form a rectangle on the image canvas so that the edges of the text window reach the edges of the cutoff guides. Make sure the type alignment is set to “Left align text” using the icon in the Text Properties menu.

9. Step 9

   Type the first letter representing the first frame of our video. You will animate the text line by typing some sample text one letter at a time, saving each frame as a unique image to your hard drive. For this example, use the text “Big News.” Begin the line by typing “B.”

10. Step 10

    Select “File” then “Save As” from the menu. Select a folder on your hard drive and enter “bignews_frame_01.tif” for the file name. Use the default TIF settings, and click “OK.”

11. Step 11

    Place your text tool cursor immediately to the right of the “B,” and click to re-open the text window. Now enter a lower case “i.” Save this image as “bignews_frame_02.tif” as you did in the previous step. Repeat until you spell out “Big News” and have saved individual frames for each letter added. Be sure to change the file names by incrementally counting up one digit for each saved frame.

12. Step 12

    Import the saved TIF files into video editing software. Place the files in sequence on the editing timeline, and encode the short video clip. The text will appear as though typed on, letter by letter.