Creating Poster / Flyer

In this lesson, I will be creating an 8.5x11 inch poster (or flyer) suitable for black-and-white printing and for posting in public locations such as university campuses, coffee house, etc.

I will be creating this flyer for the website iGliss.com, from whom I have received permission to use the layer source graphic files for this task. However, you can read along to get an insight into the design decisions and the techniques used so that you can apply them to your own site and flyer.

Click for actual size

Step 1. I created a new document 600 pixel wide and 800 pixel high. This will fit into a 8.5 x 11 inch sheet of paper. Since this is meant to be printed, we use a white canvas. Typically, you would use 300 pixel per inch for high-quality professional color brochure. But since this is an 8.5x11 flyer and our photograph will be a small one, we can go as low as 72 pixel per inch (which is the standard for screen viewing).

Step 2: I wanted the flyer to have the same look at their webiste ...

Since this is going to be printed black-and-white, I want a light background. So I sampled the gray color that is in the front page of the site.

Step 3: And used that same color as the background color of the round rectangle.

I used a darker color for the border to frame it.

Step 4: Then I dropped in the logo, which had to be resized larger (as shown above). Because I am resizing to a larger size, it is important that I have the logo in vectorized form. A resized bitmap (to a larger size) will give you poor quality.

Step 5: Since it is important that the URL of the site be obvious and memorable, I added the ".com" next to the logo. I made sure the color, solid shadow, and drop shadow matches the other letters of the logo by sampling their colors.

Step 6: Just like a matt in a framed painting, I add a bit more framing to the design by creating another larger rounded rectangle and setting its layer behind the first rectangle.

I made the outer rectangle a darker color. Again to have it act as a border.

Step 7: This is a vertical design as oppose to a horizontal design of the website. So I rearrange the design elements as shown...

Step 8: The curvy lines taken directly from the website was a bit too long. So I selected all five lines by holding the shift key and apply the transform tool (Ctrl-T) on it to fit.

Step 9: Draw an arrow with the arrow tool and give it a drop shadow. Add text and give it a solid shadow.

Step 10: Rotate the two as an unit by selecting both of them while hold the shift key. And then apply the transform tool.

Step 11: Now I want to add this photo to the upper right corner to attract some attention.

The human eye is drawn toward images more readily than text. And more so for human subjects than inanimate objects. I obtained this photo from iStockPhoto.com. The lowest resolution version of the photo will be more than sufficient for our use. In fact it is still too large. So I will first resize the image to a more managable size to say 600px. I use menu Modify -> Canvas -> Image Size and checkmark constrain proportions and resample image. Then I crop the portion that I want by using the crop tool as shown above.

Step 12: I select the bitmap image and do Ctrl-c to copy.

And Ctrl-v to paste into the poster. If Fireworks ask to resample, I click Don't Resample.

Step 13: Unfortunately, the subject is looking the wrong way. We always want the subject to face into the document so as to draw the viewers' eye towards our text. No problem, I just do Modify -> Transform -> Flip Horizontal while the bitmap is selected. And the subject is now pointing the way we want.

Step 14: We resize and position with the transform tool as shown above.

Step 15: Then we fade the left and bottom edge of the photograph. See the gradient-masking technique here to fade an image into the background. See this tutorial to fade it for multiple edges. Then trim off the upper-right corner of the image by using the paste-as-mask technique described here. And this is what you get.

Click for actual size

Note: iGliss website screen shots and flyer reprinted with permission from iGliss.com.