CREATING THE FUNKY BUSINESS CARD This is what the final product should look like. 1. Open Illustrator 2. Create a new document (file new) Name your document. Change the units to inches. Change the document size to 3.5 inches wide and 2 inches high. Keep the color mode on CMYK Press OK
3. With the rectangular shape tool, create a box covering the card 4. Save your document (File Save) 5. With the black arrow tool, select the box you just created. Using the color palette, change the box fill to green. Change the box stroke to none.
Tools of the Trade Tip: If you can not find a palette, such as the color palette, or layers palette go under the Window menu and select the palette you are looking for. 6. In the layers palette, create a new layer by selecting the new layer icon next to the trashcan. Name your new layer yellow box. To change the name of Layer 1, double click on the words Layer 1. Change the words to background 7. Select the yellow box layer and with the rectangular shape tool, draw a yellow box
8. To align the yellow box exactly in the center of you document, use the align palette. Just make sure that align to artboard is selected in the fly-out menu. 9. To add a gradient to the yellow box, select the yellow box and in the color palette, select the green radial gradient.
10. To change the color of the gradient, use the gradient and color palette. In the gradient palette under the flyout menu, make sure show options is selected. In the swatches palette, click and drag the swatch of the color you wish to replace the gradient color with, and drag it over the gradient you wish to replace. Repeat with all three colors till it s a yellow gradient instead of green. 11. To add some shape to your yellow box, use the warp tool to gently add a little shape.
12. To add a border to the yellow box, select the box. Under Window go to Brush Libraries and select Borders_Floral. In the Borders_Floral palette, select the Pressed 1.3 design. 13. In the Stroke palette, you can change the size of the stroke to fit in your design. For this exercise, the stroke was.5 pt wide.
14. If needed, resize the yellow box to fit the card better using the box edges. Realign the box in the center of the card if necessary. 15. Create a new layer called text for the text. 16. Using the text tool, create your text. For this exercise, create a text block saying Flying Carpets. Then create a second text box containing a name and title. Then create a third with a phone number, email and web address. Lastly, make a fourth text box containing an address.
17. To edit the text, use the character palette. For this exercise, we used Harrington as a font for all the text. The title is 21pt high, the name is 14 pt and the title is 7 pt. The phone number is 8 pt and the email and web address is 4.5 pt. The address is 5 pt. 18. Now lets add a little funk to our title. Select the text, than go under Effect, then Warp. Select Arc Upper and set the bend to 24%, the horizontal to -11% and the vertical to -18%. You can check the preview box to see the end result. Then press OK.
19. Now we need to add the shadow effect. To do that, select the title with the black arrow tool and go Edit, Copy, and then Edit, Paste. Place the second title over the first one, but slightly up and off to the left. 20. Next, select only the top title, and change the font color from black to white, by selecting the appropriate color in the swatches palette. Make sure you change the fill not the stroke color!
21. Now we are going to add our great little symbol doodads under the telephone and address blocks of text. To do that, select the symbol spray tool from the tool palette. 22. Then to find the symbol for this exercise, go under the Window menu and select Symbol Libraries and then Decorative Elements. 23. A new palette should have appeared. In that palette, select Arabesque 5
24. Now, with the symbol spray can tool, click once in your document. You should get one copy of the symbol. 25. To fully manipulate this symbol the way we want, we will have to unlink the symbol, which will convert it to a vectored piece of artwork. To do this, select the symbol and in the symbol palette, click the unlink icon that is in the middle of the bottom of the palette.
26. Now we can manipulate the symbol. If your symbol is not green, change the fill so it is. With the rotate tool, rotate the flower 180 degrees, and change its transparency to 27% using the transparency palette. 27. With the black arrow tool, shrink the symbol to fit in the area you want it to under the telephone and address text blocks. Feel free to move the text blocks up slightly if you need more room. Then make a copy to place on the other side by going under Edit, Copy and then Edit, Paste and place the second symbol under the address text block.
Tools of the Trade Tip: Holding down the shift key while manipulating the size of an object will keep the height and width of the symbol proportional, which prevents it from getting squashed and distorted. Tools of the Trade Tip: Instead of going Edit, Copy and then Edit, Paste to make a duplicate of an object, you can select the black arrow tool and holding the option key, click and drag the object you wish to duplicate. Illustrator will make a copy of your object automatically. Now that we have completed our business card, let s get it ready for the printer. 28. Go under File, Document Settings and change the size to Letter and the page orientation to vertical. 29. Now select the green rectangle in your background layer and go under Edit, Copy (command+c), and than Edit, Paste in front (command+f).
30. Then go Filter, Create, Crop Marks and viola!! You now have crop marks for your card! 31. Now go Select, All (command+a) and move your card so it is snug in the upper left hand corner.
32. Then with everything still selected, hold down the option key and click and drag a copy next to it. 33. Select everything and go Object, Group 34. Now with everything still selected and holding down the option key, click and drag three more sets of cards onto the page.
35. To space out our cards evenly upon the page, select all of the cards, then using the Align palette, click the Vertical Distribute Space button under Distribute Spacing. If you don t see any Distribute Spacing options in your Align palette, make sure Show Options is selected in the fly-out menu of the Align palette. That s it! Now you have some swanky new business cards and have learned some Illustrator tools in the process! Congratulations!