New client: Saferworld

Vickers Creative is proud to announce Saferworld as a new client, designing their Gender & Security training document for Nepal.

Images to follow.

Multi column text box in Illustrator

Just like it's more type-friendly brother InDesign, Adobe Illustrator also features multi-column text boxes. Although in Illy, it's not as obvious but just as easy:

Create a text box using the Type tool. With the text box highlights go to Type>Area Type Options. From there you can set the following:
Text box width/height
Rows/columns (and their span/gutter)
Offset/inset spacing
Flow direction of text.

Makes Illustrator that little bit more powerful when trying to set text, huh?

How to create clipping masks in InDesign

Creating clipping masks in Creative Suite has a different approach for each of its programs, despite being a 'suite'. Here I'll explain how to mask an image or object in InDesign.

A clipping mask is simply the masking, or selective hiding, of parts of an image or object against a given shape. The shape can be rectangular, circular, or an arbitrary path drawn with the pen tool. It's the preferred method of cropping as the designer can non-destructively crop an image, for example in a magazine layout, then move the mask around the image in order to find a better crop.

If you're used to creating clipping masks in Illustrator or Photoshop you might find doing the same in InDesign a bit baffling at first - I know I did! Illustrator has probably the most logical way of dealing with masks: Path on top, image below, select both objects, highlight the path in the layers palette and hit F7 - a new group is created with the clipping mask on top, easy! Photoshop works the opposite way, obviously: Image above, path below, in the layers palette Alt-click on the dividing line between the two layers. Or use the new 'Mask' palette in more recent versions of Photoshop, which has a nifty opacity and feather feature, which is quite nice for softening masks when used in a montage.

InDesign requires you to do a third process. One must 'Paste Into' the mask!

Images brought into InDesign from Finder/Explorer/Bridge will automatically have a clipping mask attached. Try it: Selecting an image with the direct arrow pointer (black arrow) will select the image and give it a blue bounding box with handles:



Now deselect and reselect with the indirect arrow pointer (white arrow) - notice the bounding box is now brown with handles?



The blue represents the clipping mask which can be resized, cropping or masking the image:



The brown is the actual limits of the image, which can extend invisibly beyond the blue mask. One can use the brown handles to resize the image directly (keeping a finger on the Shift key to keep proportions, of course).




Scenario: You've just created a shape with a gradient, or some outlined type which you want to mask against another shape - how do you do that?

Well, simply create your object:



Then create your new mask shape:



Select the object you want want masked and Edit>Cut or Cmd+X:



Then select your mask and hit Edit>Paste Into or Alt+Cmd+V:



Voila! Your fancy gradient is now inside your mask!