The sell sheet from last week was created in Illustrator CS4, so I took some time Monday afternoon to convert it into an InDesign CS4 document. InDesign is a page layout program that’s more suitable for creating multi-page documents, and generally it is faster at handling large amounts of text, applying common styling to multiple pages, and so forth. The newer versions of InDesign add quite a few nice effects like drop shadowing, flexible rounded corner tools, and transparency, which makes it possible to do more final compositing in InDesign than “baking the effects” in Illustrator and Photoshop.

The image shows the front cover and the sample inner page. The inner pages will be two-page spreads, so the inner page shown here will be on the left side. The right side will have more information about the page template, which I need to write first.

One of the creative concepts I’m playing with on the front cover is the idea of ready to wear. Making template-based websites with minimal alterations is not unlike buying a suit off-the-rack and having it tailored slightly, so this might be a good metaphor. The suit in this picture, ironically, is a custom suit that my Dad helped me get last time I was in Taiwan, but the material is nice and I thought it would be a good backdrop. I shot the pic with a 50mm macro lens on my Canon 40D DSLR with a single 150W halogen bulb to create the background texture, and edited the resulting RAW file in Photoshop, editing out the dust specks and cat hair before importing it into InDesign. It’s an 8.5×11 150DPI image; kind of low in resolution for a printer, but acceptable for my purposes.

When I get a chance, I’m planning on printing an actual physical label and arranging it artfully on top of the suit, and shooting it in natural light by a big window at the studio. I’ll have to remember to switch the 40d from SRAW to RAW shooting; this will give me the necessary resolution to print very sharp when I output the final catalog at a digital print-on-demand service like Blurb or Lulu. This will be nice to show to prospective clients in person.