Happy Christmas from Vickers Creative!

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How to adjust the baseline grid spacing in InDesign

A good habit to get into when typesetting in InDesign is to use the Align to Baseline Grid function to ensure lines of text on neighbouring columns sit on the same baseline.

However, the baseline spacing panel isn't that obvious…

In the menu bar, go to InDesign>Preferences>Grid. Here you will find the area where you can adjust the baseline grid, application-wide. The options available are: baseline start distance from top margin, relative to…, increment (this should be set to the body text leading unit, for example if your body text is 12pt on 14pt leading enter 14pt in the increment box), and view threshold for zoom level.

To make the grid visible go to View>Grids and Guides>Show Baseline Grid, and to align the text to this grid highlight the text and click on the Align to Baseline Grid button in the bottom right hand corner of the Paragraph palette.

How to remove sticky 'favourites' from the Mac OSX Finder sidebar

So, you've gone and added some folder or file shortcuts to your Finder sidebar (you know, the list of files and folders down the left hand side of your Mac OS X Finder window) and you can jump to regularly used stuff quickly.

Pretty cool, huh?

But after a while the list gets big and you can't see what you need quickly anymore. Maybe it's a shortcut to an old server item, or a file that doesn't exist anymore… Usually one would drag the item out of the Finder sidebar and the item disappears. But sometimes those pesky shortcuts just won't budge!

A little tip to remove them for good is to drag the stubborn favourite item out of the sidebar while holding Alt & Cmd. This forces the deletion!

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!

July Newsletter

Leith on the Fringe
Rad Rooster, with design input from Vickers Creative. The stationery and promotional material is being produced by the Leith branch of printing.com, and clean grafitti promotional stencilling equipment supplied by Stirling's Laser Cut It. Read more at Leith on the Fringe and Vickers Creative.

Leith on the Fringe 2011 has now officially launched! The LotF guys have been busy on the streets of Edinburgh with a 'clean graffiti' advertising campaign which is sure to get the word spreading throughout the city. As well as the logo and branding, Vickers Creative has also produced the first in a series of flyers to be distributed throughout the city, business cards, and a venue show programme which is just about to go to print. The awesome website has been designed by Anthony Ellis of

Emotion Energy
Recent work: Presentation folders for the Royal Highland Show

Refer me onto a friend or colleague - 10% off for them, 10% off for you!

Not only will they receive a 10% welcome discount, you'll also receive 10% off your next invoice!
(Discounts apply to billable design work only. Not including billable third party printing services)
6 months old and growing!
Although Winter seems like a distant season at the moment, it's been 6 months since the dark days of January when Vickers Creative was born. And boy so much has happened; From working in the corner of a Glasgow tenement bedroom to studio space in a bright West End office, it's off to a flying start!

Over the months I've had the opportunity to work with great clients, including: Gav Livz, Cycle Responder, Singletrack, International Network of Street Papers, Emotion Energy, The Choke Folk, Prevailing Analysis, The Pokey Hat Vintage, DirtSchool, The Caurnie Soaperie, Leith on the Fringe, and most recently Crocodile Business Solutions and Iron-Oxide's 'The Tide Machine' kinetic theatre performance in Kirkcudbright. As well as working with my own clients, I have also had the opportunity of working freelance with great agencies The Marketing Café and Merchant Soul.

Here's to the next 6 months!