Capstone Project - Formatting
https://www.haymancreative.co.uk/downloads/templates/templates.php
Card template - https://www.haymancreative.co.uk/resources/PDF-files/Playing-Card-Example.pdf
On the Hayman creative website there are free templates to let you format your cards to the correct size, I have downloaded the playing card template and brought it into InDesign. As you can see below, I am going to have to separate my files into foreground, midground and background to allow me to put the accurate bleed onto my cards.
The card size here is 89mm x 64mm with a 3mm bleed, the artwork should fit within the pink box, which at the minute mine is a bit narrow. This is an easy enough fix as I have my file split up into layers which will allow me to move the objects to where they should be to allow for bleed. This slightly larger card size [compared to my original drawing] is actually really useful, I think especially with the furniture cards this will make the artwork on the cards feel much less cramped.
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| My card on the template, as you can see it is a bit narrow and does not cover the bleed area. |
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| This is the template, ideally your image should cover the pink box. |
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| Here's a better look at the issue, as you can see the card I have drawn is far too thin. |
Separating my elements -
The first thing I did before doing any kind of formatting is separating my elements into different layers, as you can see here, I have my background, UI elements and character all on different levels, which will allow me to freely move them to accommodate for printing bleed.
Resolving the formatting issues -
I had some trouble opening the Adobe suite on my home PC, so as an alternative I used the free app Scribus to format these cards [the file type is compatible with Adobe illustrator so I will be able to alternate between both software freely]. Using the Hayman creative template, here is how my cards will look like, I went a bit over where the stated bleed line would be just to make sure there will be no chance of any white edges showing through, this did cut off some of the plant in the bottom left corner but you wouldn't have been able to see much of it anyways so it doesn't really matter.
Once I had made the Obie card, I used the same template to make the Grug card, This will make assembling my client cards much faster in the future as all I have to worry about drawing is the pose the character will be in. If I do the same for the 3 other types of cards too, this will drastically cut down on the amount of time I have to spend formatting the final card layouts. You can also see that I removed the white border, I think this gives a cleaner look to the card and maximizes the amount of space to show off the artwork. One thing I will have to change however is extending the rock border of the nameplate down to the bottom of the background, this will ensure [much like the background bleed] that if it is slightly misaligned it will not show any of the blue background underneath, this will improve the visual quality of the final card overall.
Formatting process -
Adding in images:
In most formatting software like scribus and InDesign, images are not actually added onto the document, only linked, so you will have to link file locations and make sure they do not move or get changed so that the image will still show on the project you are working on. In scribus, the first thing you need to do is click the image box icon on the top of the screen and draw out how big your image box will be, something I prefer in InDesign over Scribus is the ability to snap image boxes to a grid. It shows you where the middle of the screen is and so its easier to lay out images in comparison to scribus which doesn't do that. For this application however my image box covers the entire page, so it doesn't really matter all that much. Once you are happy with your image box placement, click the "get image" option in the right click dropdown box.
Scaling images:
This will bring your image in at the same size it was created at, to scale it down you can use the "Fit image to box" option in the right hand drop down, then use the F3 properties menu to find the "proportional option" this allows you to freely scale your image. It is to note that this causes a bit of warping to the image, however it was not noticeable in the background and I actually preferred the way it looked after i had scaled it like this.
Adding and editing text:
Finally. to add text use the text box option then "Edit text in story editor", I had my font pre-downloaded (Chelsea Market, a free to use font online) so it showed up in my font list. To change the colour of my font, I used the F3 properties menu then under colour effects, chose my desired colour (that being white).
Preview of the cards:
Once I was happy with my cards, I checked how they looked without the lines by using the hotkey Ctrl+Alt+P for preview. This is not the final design as I might replace the letters at the top with icons but for now this serves as a placeholder to make the rest of the client card creation process much easier.
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| I might extend the bottom title rock down past the bleed to make sure there are no cut offs. |
Trello -
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/112wXJW27lFJjkPjQHZk7fCMT7VPCanDHE-cVP0tGDUM/edit?gid=0#gid=0
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