It’s becoming increasingly popular for people to design and/or edit their marketing materials. It’s understandable, it doesn’t look that hard. I can do that, right? Well, after 4 years of college and nearly 10 years in advertising…it ain’t that easy either.

Well, I can’t stop you from doing your own work, and I do applaud you for learning something new and trying to save your company some valued marketing dollars. So to help you make your company look a bit better here, are a few tips you should know.

1) Fonts: Everyone loves using fonts. I need this font to showcase this service and this font to showcase this other service. Next thing you know it’ looks like a carnival exploded (even carnival posters usually only have two typefaces though). Try to keep it to two typefaces and no more than two type variances of one of them. (ie. A bold Helvetica for headlines, and times with normal and bold for copy). Also try to keep from using more than 3 type sizes. This will keep conformity to your design and not make the users eye dance all over the place trying to figure out want they need/want to read.
http://www.amazon.com/Typography-Workbook-Real-World-Graphic-Design/dp/1592533019/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1238174329&sr=1-1

2) Layout: One of the best way to learn proper layout is with some colored construction paper, sissors, a glue stick, and a pile of 8.5×11 white sheet of copy paper. You cut the construction paper into a bunch of different shapes. Small squares, large squares, HUGE squares, rectangles, circles and maybe even a triangle or two. The more variance in sizes and more pieces of cut up construction paper the better. Now take these shapes and glue them to your copy paper. Align them so they are appealing to your eye. Now, visualize as to what could be a photo, a headline, and your copy. Voila, layout 101.
http://www.amazon.com/Design-Layout-Understanding-Using-Graphics/dp/0713488387/ref=sr_1_30?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1238174282&sr=1-30

3) Equipment: Get the right stuff. Leave word for that letter you need to write to your boss and pick up a decent design suite. Of course I recommend a Mac with the Adobe CS3/CS4 package, but not everyone needs that kind of power. Corel makes some decent entry level programs that printers can still use. Oh and publisher is out…please don’t use that for anything but maybe your church newsletter, if you must.
Adobe: http://www.adobe.com/products/creativesuite/design/?promoid=BPDDY
Corel: http://apps.corel.com/lp/other/5590/index1u.html

4) Learn the equipment: Most are pretty easy to learn. And the best thing to do it buy a book. The second best is to hit up a podcast. There are quite a few ranging from beginner to advanced. The book though will help you find the topics you need to look up though. Third is to find a friend who you can call for tips. Also, don’t feel you can’t call you agency and tell them you’re having to cut your marketing budget and have to do more design in house. You may be able to work out a deal for them to check your work and give advice for a small fee. Just watch out about contacting them too often, it may end up cheaper to just send them the work. And I hope you are still sending them a bone or two, other wise you might want to find another source for critquing your work. Below are a couple some links you’ll certainly want to check out.

Indesign CS3 – http://www.amazon.com/InDesign-Macintosh-Windows-Visual-QuickStart/dp/0321503066/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1238173663&sr=1-2
Corel – http://www.amazon.com/Corel-WordPerfect-Suite-8-Dummies/dp/0764501879/ref=sr_1_12?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1238173706&sr=1-12
Podcasts – http://itunes.apple.com/WebObjects/MZStore.woa/wa/viewPodcast?id=124921198
- http://itunes.apple.com/WebObjects/MZStore.woa/wa/viewPodcast?id=130134744

In closing, doing small projects here or there on your own can not only cut your costs, but can save you time. Things like small flyers, in house memos, small event posters, and other small projects can be done quickly once you’ve learned the programs. Just don’t get in over your head and you end up doing more design work than your daily job…time is money and a lot of time it’s better to just send the job out and save your time. Good luck and feel free to ask questions.

Keep an eye out for my next blog…Indesign tips and tricks!