A 3-FOLD 8 1/2 X 11 BROCHURE CREATION FOR ANOTHER CLIENT

Another XARA creation dump on the forum...

This is a 3-fold Brochure with bleed (not shown) I did for a gal starting a business. (names numbers websites changed for the post).

I love doing stuff like this in XARA... Hope the screenshots do it justice...

Attachment 123736 Attachment 123737

So this gets exported as a 300 dpi CMYK PDF and sent to the printer... I never cease to be confused about matching the colors and different PDF formats, but it seem to work out in the end...
Some printers want TIFF files - and I could never figure out why. So each page would have to exported (at the bleed size) to TIFF. Just don't know why they wouldn't use PDF these days...
...maybe something to do with color? Who knows? I just do what they ask. LOL They don't have to know that I know diddly about this stuff. LOL

I just walk in and play is cool, acting like the graphics professional I'm not... (FUN!) "Sure, no problem... TIFF? PDF? JPG? PNG? 1/4" bleed 1/8" bleed?... no prob. whatever you need" LOL
When I turn it in... if they say "good", I turn, roll my eyes up and say... "whew! get me outta here."

There are some real printing pros here on the forum... that's where I got a lot of info from that helped me begin to do this kind of stuff... but it's coming together slowly...

Cliff

Looking pretty good, Cliff, you've got a designers eye!

Cool. What if you brought the blond lady in front of that shape?

Quote:

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Originally Posted by gwpriester

Cool. What if you brought the blond lady in front of that shape?

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I 100% agree! Thanks Gary... that head definitely belongs on top of the graphic for that... 'look'. You know... that what do ya call it.... that... 'look'. Maybe a bit 3D_ish kinda thing.... LOL Just havin' some fun...

Thanks again Gary!

:)

Being part of your fan club, I feel I have to be honest and say I find this one too 'templatey'. It's missing the Cliff factor.

Don't get me wrong, it's very effective and does it's job perfectly but I daren't zoom in for fear of finding the Shutterstock logo :D That's actually quite a compliment. Companies throw tons of time and money at templates!

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Chris M

Being part of your fan club, I feel I have to be honest and say I find this one too 'templatey'. It's missing the Cliff factor.

Don't get me wrong, it's very effective and does it's job perfectly but I daren't zoom in for fear of finding the Shutterstock logo :D That's actually quite a compliment. Companies throw tons of time and money at templates!

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Chris... you broke my heart bro. :( ;) But I agree... It's definitely 'templatey'... but definitely not template based. Two things here...

1) Believe it or not, the ONLY thing/idea I borrowed from another brochure was the curved thingy at the bottom... the rest is all me. LOL
The only logo I used was her company logo supplied by her... and all the other pics... Public Domain CC stuff.

2) She showed me a half dozen brochures that she liked and they all were very similar to what I created...
"I want it to look like these if you can" I took pieces/ideas from about 3 of them and put it all together...

This one was strictly business. No fun... No creativity... No playin' around with stuff... Just a business brochure..

Thanks as always

Cliff

Got a call tonight from a friend of a friend who has a Venetian Blind business and wants a flyer.... That'll be a whopping 20 bucks I'll be depositing this week... (Whoo-Hoo!!! Let the good times roll!)

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Originally Posted by cmpan1

1) Believe it or not, the ONLY thing/idea I borrowed from another brochure was the curved thingy at the bottom... the rest is all me.

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In that case I shall re-pin my badge.

Attachment 123739

Looks more like one of those Ninja throw weapons than a badge. ;))

Went for a Ninja mask, but ended up with whatever this is...

Attachment 123740

A half-masked Ninja throw weapon. :)

1. I wouldn't worry about the $20. You gotta start somewhere. It's good for the portfolio. Worth way more.
2. I agree with the woman pooping out in front of the line graphics.
3. Did the client ask for the Brown/Marooon color? To me it makes it seem a bit 1990's. Lighter colors appeal to the modern audience. Just my take on it though.

For Additional professional Tips:

1. About Formatting and file types. Be careful with Xara to Adobe PS, Adobe Illustrator, Corel Draw, EPS.
Xaras transparency, shadow and Gradients don't translate well in those other programs. I usually use those programs for that, or export a png file to keep my Xara transparency or gradient.

2. PDF: With PDF, be careful on fonts you use. Share the font file with the clients' printers so they may install it if you used something off the wall many people don't have. Another reason why many people don't use PDF is when they use Adobe Illustrator. It's a pain in the butt trying to edit pages. Have to convert each to an art board. I don't bother.

I go with EPS files. Because they are editable on the other end.

3. Always best to place all your objects on their own layers when sharing EPS files and PDF files with everyone else. Because the majority do no use Xara professionally. It's mainly Adobe products. IF we don't do this, all our objects wind up on the layer you left them in. People can't edit them individually that way.

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I go with EPS files. Because they are editable on the other end.

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Why not PDF/X? Xara's focus on export has been PDF and these files can be edited and are also Adobe Illustrator's default file format (along with .ai).

mwenz will have a better answer here but long ago when I used EPS files they were used to "place" in a Quark or InDesign document. For editing in Illustrator at least, .ai was better. But I might just be succumbing to weak memory and advanced age.

Just curious.

Opening a PDF in Illustrator is a big can of worms. Illy is the absolute worst application to open a PDF for editing. As well, opening a PDF even made from Illustrator without including the AI embedded file (which is the default) can/does destroy all AI constructs (as these cannot be retained in PDF format). PDF format was never intended to be a generally editable format. That 3rd-party libraries, such as those used for Xara products, can most often reconstruct a PDF is moot. Adobe doesn't use them in their products.

Xara products will properly embed fonts into a PDF (most applications properly do this these days). There is absolutely no need to send font files to any other person in the production chain and this violates most font licenses. (SIL and other Open Source fonts and their license not withstanding).

If a font has sufficient permissions, it will be embedded properly. If it uses the one single font permission that does not allow embedding, it also most likely is against its license to share. Pick another font.

Xara's AI/EPS export is really a very old AI file format. I use it for certain work. The other couple EPS types are pretty much application specific and generally don't play well with other applications.

Xara's PSD export is pretty good (but so is PS' ability to open PDFs) and I would use the PSD export when intending to use PS.

Xara's 16-bit CMX export is seemingly broken in the newest update as I get an access violation. A file is created, but CD cannot open them any longer. The CMX I have exported in the past work good. I'll investigate using a previous Xara product.

OK. All that said, if one needs to use AI, PS or whatever, use that application. I still design most things in Xara products, but at sme point it will be ported to those applications and either simply exported to AI/PSD and resaved or once I need effects for the finished off file, then I'll do the flat work in Xara applications and finish off in the Adobe applications. There really is no other good way to collaborate or hand off proper files.

But unless native files are part of an agreement, I do not bother with the above. It's Xara all the way. I haven't sent native files to a print establishment ever. It's either PostScript files that got directly RIPped or PDFs since PDF became a thing.

Mike - To your point about embedded fonts and font embedding permission. I recently used a free font, SF Movie Poster for a book project. When I checked the properties for my exported PDF/X file in Acrobat it warned the font could not be embedded. So I contacted the foundry, purchased the font license and everything was cool.

Hello,
Very good points guys.Mwenz, thanks for the clear up on that.

Just some more replies


1. To MWenz about AI and PDFs. Yes. Its the worst. I learned that the hard way. LOL. Xara is sooooo much better at it.


2. Professional Collaboration work: Yes sometimes I have to collaborate with others for projects and find myself doing fast flat work in Xara and finishing off in AI.

2. Xara mustve made some updates because my Xara pro can now export Shadow, Transparency, linear transparency, gradient, and even feathering to a new copy of CS6 I just installed. Did this today. Which blew my mind. LOL

But it still has problems doing it all bundled together.


3. Fun Fact: XARA over AI. Xara kicks AI's butt in so many things. I wish more people knew about it here in the States. They all look at me crazy. But I wind up doing the same type of work 3 times faster than they do.


4. But I have a real important question im about to post in a new thread. I do custom sublimation apparel. And sometimes the test prints dont come out right. So I go to check in AI and wind up having color issues there even worse. What I mean is the colors wind up looking way different sometimes. It urks me. anyway. Im about to post it so all can see.

I tried to answer #4 in your follow up post.