InDesign Workshop - Poster

The second part of this project involves creating a companion poster announcing the same exhibition. We have more space to work with so we can use more images and provide more information.

First, locate the poster folder in the InDesign Workshop01 folder on the hard drive. 

1. Open InDesign, if it is not already open. Close the postcard file if you still have it open, but keep your printed copy nearby for reference.

2. Create a new document. Set the number of pages to 1, UNcheck the Facing Pages option, and set the page size to Tabloid using the pull down menu. Set the margins to .25 on all sides, then click the OK button.

3. We will place our background image first. Go to the FILE menu and choose PLACE. Select leda-larger-20.tif from the Poster folder. Click the Open button. Click the mouse at the upper left corner to place the image.

4. We need to slightly resize the image. Select the Scale tool and, while holding down the shift key, click and drag on the lower right handle of the image. You can make it slightly larger than needed. 

5. Once the image is scaled, use the Selection tool to resize the image box to exactly what is needed.

6. Now we can add our headlines. For each of the following, draw a text box and set the font to Apple Chancery and the size as listed.

1st box - "Drawings" - 60 pt.
2nd box - "of" - 48 pt.
3rd box - Leonardo daVinci - 72 pt.
4th box - "an exhibition of artistic treasures" - 24 pt.
You will also want to create text boxes for the Where and When information.

7. Once you have created the text boxes, you can arrange them on the poster so that the title is at the top and the where and when information is slightly lower.

8. Now, we will place the rest of our images. We will need to set some guides for this. You can set guides by clicking in the rulers at the left and top of your document window. Set horizontal guides at 14 and 16 inches, and a vertical guide at 5.5 (the center of the page).

9. Go to the FILE menu and choose PLACE. Select self.tif and click the Open button. Place the file near the guides. Resize the image so that it fits between the guides (2 inches tall). Center it using the center guide.

10. Place and resize the following images using the guides: 

widget.tif
head.tif
hands.tif
skull.tif
womb.tif
skeletons.tif

These images will line up to the right and left of the center image of Leonardo. Zoom in as you are arranging the images to make sure that the edges are in line. For images that "bleed" off the document edges, resize the image box.

11. Next, we will create two columns of text. Set more guides as follows:

Horizontal Guides: 12 in. and 13 5/8 in.
Vertical Guides: .5 in. and 10.5 in.

12. Draw the new text block using these guides.

13. With the text block still selected, go to the OBJECT menu and choose Text Frame Options. Set the number of columns to 2 and click the OK button.

14. Pretty cool, but a little empty. Go to the TYPE menu and choose Fill with Placeholder Text. This will give you an idea of what the text blocks will look like with text. Select the text and change the font to Apple Chancery [Chancery], and the size to 12 pt. 

15. We do have some content ready to use here. Open the postcard file and select the description text from the first page. Go to the EDIT menu and choose COPY. Switch back to the poster document and select the text tool. Click at the beginning of the first column, go to the EDIT menu and choose PASTE. 

16. Select the text from the postcard and change the size to 12 pt. Change any of the placeholder text if you want to (although "Lore doloborti iscidunt ulputem verci" is so eloquent...).

17. Add a small text block containing your name at the bottom right corner of the poster. Change the size to 10 pt and the font to Apple Chancery [Chancery].

There you have it! A poster to complement your exhibition postcard!

18. Let's print a copy. Go to the Chooser (Apple Menu > Chooser) and select LaserWriter 8 from the top left pane. Go back to InDesign and choose PRINT from the FILE menu. Set the number of copies to 1 and click the Print button. You may have to wait a bit since there are several images placed in the document.