Freelance Graphic & Web Design Studio: Lucid Motives

As a print graphic designer, you will be hired to create various types of traditional print design work. For large, multi-page projects I recommend using Adobe InDesign or Quark. But, for single page designs, I like to layout my work in Adobe Illustrator. And to improve my work flow using this application, I have created a library of document files that are preset with the necessary full bleed, crop/trim mark and live area guides. This has saved me hours of time and I am going to show you how to do the same. We are going to create a one page template for a tri-fold brochure. Before we begin, let’s understand the terminology I will be using:

Full Bleed

Bleed is a printing term that refers to the printing that goes to the edge of the paper after trimming. If there is any portion of your design you wish to appear to go beyond the edge of a page (textured backgrounds or background colors) without showing any of the white paper, then you will have these elements go beyond the bleed guide, which is considered full bleed.

Crop or Trim Marks

Crop or Trim marks, also known as Corner Marks, are crossed lines place on the corner of documents indicating where the paper will be trimmed after the document has been printed.

Live Area Guide

Live Area Guides, or safety guides, are set so you know exactly where to place all of your text content. I use live area guides as a warning that I am potentially coming too close to where the paper will be trimmed. Remember that the trimming process is not 100% accurate across all printers. So, to err on the “safe” side, give yourself some room for unforeseen printer differences. You will thank yourself later.

The standard American bleed size for a tri-fold brochure, before the folding trimming process, is 11.25 inches x 8.75 inches. And we know that the final trimmed document will be 11 inches x 8.5 inches. Therefore, we know that the bleed will extend, on all four sides of the document, by .125 inches. This may sound confusing now, but it will make sense by the end of the tutorial.

This tutorial was written using Adobe Illustrator CS2 running on Apple OS 10.4.11, but can be applied to versions CS to CS3 across both platforms. I’ve chosen not to use keyboard shortcuts to insure there is no confusion for anyone who is new to the application. Let’s begin.

Step 1: Creating a new document

Launch Adobe Illustrator. From the top menu, select File – New, which will open the New Document dialog box. Enter the following settings:

1. Name: Tri-Fold Brochure Single (or whatever you wish to name the document)
2. Underneath the Artboard Setup, change size to Custom and Units to inches.
3. Enter 11.25 in the width option box and 8.75 in the height option box. The orientation should automatically change to Landscape.
4. Select CMYK for color mode.
5. Click “OK”.
6. If your rulers are not present at the top on the document, select View – Show Rulers from the top menu.
7. Change the view to actual size by selecting View – Actual Size from the top menu.

Step 2: Create Layers

We are going to create two layers for this template and name each of them. Let’s name the first layer, Guide Layer, and the second layer, Artwork. The names are optional. The first layer will be deleted before you send any files to the printer, so it is good practice to name them so as to not confuse yourself later. Locate your Layers Palette Window, usually located on the right side of your document, and complete the following steps. If your Layers Palette Window is not visible, select Window – Layers from the top menu.

1. Double click on Layer 1. The Layers Option dialog box will open. Enter Guide Layer in the Name input box and click “OK”.
2. At the bottom of the Layers Palette Window, you will see a series of icons. Click on the Create New Layer icon and Layer 2 will appear above Guide Layer. Repeat the first step and name this layer Artwork. Also, select the Lock option and click “OK”. (Note: We are temporarily locking this layer right now so that we do not accidentally select it as we set up our Guide Layer.)

Step 3: Creating Visual Guide References

This section of the tutorial is extensive, so read through each step carefully. We are going to be using shapes, fills, strokes and brushes for our visual guide references. I like to have a visual guide reference, along with my guides. I find that looking at a document that has multiple guides can get confusing at times. This step is optional.

1. Select your Guide Layer. From your Tools Palette Window, select Rectangle Tool from the fly out window. Make sure you have your Strokes set to none. You can use any Fill color you feel comfortable with. I am using the following color (C:93, M:5, Y:5, K:0). Click anywhere on the Artboard to bring up the Rectangle Tool dialog box. Type 11.25 inches into the width input box and 8.75 inches into the height input box. You have now created a rectangle that is the exact same dimensions as the full bleed dimensions of the document.
2. Now you will align this newly created rectangle to the Artboard. If your Align Palette Window is not open, select Window – Align to open it. From the Align Palette Window fly out menu (the small button in the upper right hand corner with an arrow pointing right), select Align to Artboard if it is not already selected. Select your rectangle and click on the icon for Horizontal Align Left and Vertical Align Top. The rectangle should now be perfectly aligned to your Artboard.
3. We are going to repeat some of Steps 1 and 2 for the cropped area of the brochure. Make sure you have deselected the original rectangle. Select white as your fill color and this color (C: 95, M: 33, Y: 0, K: 36) for your 2px stroke. Click anywhere on the Artboard to bring up the Rectangle Tool dialog box and enter 11 inches for the width and 8.5 inches for the height. With this rectangle selected, you are now going to click on Horizontal Align Center and Vertical Align Center to absolutely center this shape to the Artboard.
4. Next, we are going to add a dotted line brush with scissors to the 2px stroke. With your selection tool, select the inner rectangle. If your Brushes Palette Window is not open, select Window – Brushes to open it. From the Brushes Palette Window fly out menu, select Other Brush Library – Borders_Dashed. This will open a pre-installed Brush Library of dash styled borders. Select the first Brush, called “Cut Here”, and you will see the Brush applied to your 2px stroke.
5. Now, we will create a visual reference for the live area guide. The rule of thumb is that the live area is .125 inches away from the crop/trim mark area and, therefore, .25 inches away from the bleed. Select your Rectangle Tool once more, click anywhere on the Artboard and enter 10.75 inches for the width and 8.25 inches for the height. Set your fill color to None and stroke to 1px. The stroke color I used is (C: 93, M: 5, Y: 5, K: 0).

Step 4: Placing your guides

Now we are going to drag out and place all of our guides for the document. This is going to require you to dust off those mathematical grade school skills. First, make sure that your guides are not locked for this step by selecting View → Guides. If there is a check mark next to Lock Guides, select the option to unlock them. We will need the freedom to move guides around and we will lock them at the end.

Step 4a: Full Bleed Guides

1. Zoom into the document as much as you can by selecting the Zoom Tool, from the Tools Palette, and clicking and dragging on the upper left hand corner of the document.
2. Choose your Selection Tool from the Tools Palette and click on your top ruler. Without releasing your mouse, drag a guide from the top, until it snaps into place on the topmost portion of the Artboard.
3. Zoom back out to 100%. Now, zoom into the lower left corner of the document and repeat this step by dragging a guide until it snaps into place at the bottom of the Artboard.
4. Do the same for the left and right side of the document. These are your guides for the full bleed.

Step 4b: Crom/Trim Mark Guides

1. Now we are going to have do some basic adding and subtracting to know where to place our guides for the crop/trim area. We know that there is .125 inches between the bleed and crop/trim area. Once again, zoom into the top left of the document and drag another guide from the top ruler until you reach the top of the “Cut Here” stroke and release your mouse. Now, we need to place the guide exactly .125 inches from the top. We achieve this by selecting that guide and inputting a value in the “x” or “y” input box under the Transform Palette Window. With the newly placed guide selected, input 8.625 inches  (8.75 − .125 = 8.625) in the “y” input box and you will see the guide snap to this new value. If your guide does not move to the newly entered value, make sure that your guides are not locked.
2. From the left ruler, drag and place a guide at .125 inches on the “x” axis.
3. From the top ruler, drag and place a guide at .125 inches on the “y” axis.
4. From the left ruler, drag and place a guide at 11.25 inches on the “x” axis (11.75 − .125 = 11.25).
5. You now have your guides for the crop/trim mark area.

Step 4c: Live Area Guides

1. Using the previous steps, from the top ruler, drag and place a guide at 8.5 inches on the “y” axis (8.625 − .125 = 8.5).
2. From the left ruler, drag and place a guide at .25 inches on the “x” axis.
3. From the top ruler, drag and place a guide at .25 inches on the “y” axis.
4. From the left ruler, drag and place a guide at 11 inches on the “x” axis (11.25 − .25 = 11).
5. You now have your guides for the live area.

Step 4d: Folding Guides

With basic division, we know that is panel of the tri-fold brochure will be 3.75 inches wide (11.25 ÷ 3 = 3.75).

1. From the left ruler, drag and place two more guides on the “x” axis. One will be placed at 3.75 inches and the other will be place at 7.5 inches. You now have your guides for the folds.
2. Go ahead and lock your guides.
3. Optionally, you can create a dotted line as a visual reference for the folds using the pre-installed Brush, Dashed Line 1.1.

Step 5: Save your document

All that is left to do is to save your document as an Adobe Illustrator Template. Lock your Guide Layer and unlock your Artwork layer. Select File – Save as Template… and navigate to where you would like to save the document. You will notice that Illustrator will append .ait to your file name indicating this is a template document. The .ait file is different from the .ai file. Once you have saved this document as a template, from here on out, when you are creating a tri-fold brochure, simply launch Adobe Illustrator and, from the top menu, choose File – New From Template… and it will open an instance of the template, and not the template itself.

Nowadays, many digital print companies have downloadable template files for non-designers to use. But, in my opinion, as a professional designer you should create your own template library for standard sized projects for print. You can also create templates for standard sized bi-fold brochures, letterhead, envelopes and business cards. And each one of these templates will save you time, allowing you to concentrate on the creative part of the process and not the document set up.

Tags: Adobe Illustrator Customization, Print Design, Tutorials

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