Happy New Year!

All the elements in this card are made in Apple's Pages.

New Year Greetings, a card.

Happy New Year to all I Work in Pages readers!

It took me less than an hour to draw this card almost entirely with Pages Draw Pen (you can see it in the top right corner of the Shapes menu in the current Pages version (7.3). The Robin on Snowman's hand is from my previous design. The handle of the bucket is a line with end-points.

Enjoy graphic design in Pages!

This image shows all the separate elements highlighted:

And here you can see the Snowman's body with the dots I used when drawing him:

Christmas and New Year Projects

For Christmas projects to print or to send digitally please read this previous article on I Work in Pages:

Christmas Projects in Pages.

And have a look at other festive ideas and solutions in other posts.

A complete 10-step Christmas card design tutorial is here.

Background Images

I am publishing this wonderful photo of a meadow in full bloom in France (photo by ©Francesca Bostock, 2011) just to show how to use background images.

What is attractive about this photograph is that it has a natural colour sequence: look how deep green, light green, speckled yellow, scarlet red, orange-red, deep blue and light blue is spread throughout the expanse of the meadow. And the curving road at the top adds a pefect finishing touch. Nature is the best artist.

Now, drop the photo into your Pages document, then under Arrange menu Send it to Back or Send Object to Background. After that create a Shape (a text box, or a rectangle) and in Graphic Inspector choose colour fill, pick colour (here it is a shade of green, but grey would work well too) and reduce opacity to around 75 percent, then type and format your text – an invitation to the Fourth of July barbecue, to la Bastille fireworks or to the Remembrance ceremony (image on the right).

One semi-transparent box

If you think the text doesn't stand out enough, use the two box trick (image below): insert a second shape, make it larger than the shape with text and Send Backward under Arrange menu. Then reduce opacity to around 75 percent.

Next select the box with text, in Graphic Inspector click on colour well and when  Colour viewer opens increase opacity to 100 percent. Using two boxes instead of one gives the impression of transparency while in fact the main box has solid colour fill to allow the text to be clearly visible.

Read more in the articles How to make coloured text stand out on the same colour background and Fading Out a Background Image.

See more photos of Normandy on my photo blog.

How to make coloured text stand out on the same colour background.

We can’t write white on white or black on black, can we?

Here is the trick I’ve used to make text stand out even when it has the same colour as the dominating colour of the background. The text needs to be put inside a box with a semiopaque colour fill. Above is the card I designed for a relative’s jubilee. Cherries in the background have the same colour theme as the message inside the box. This technique is also useful for magazine design.

This is how it works:

– open a blank document, choose landscape (horizontal) layout if it is going to be a card, vertical if you are making a poster of a flyer;

– drag and drop the photo into the Pages document from iPhoto or Desktop, resize and position as needed;

– next insert a Text Box (or a rectangle, it doesn’t matter). Text Box by default doesn’t have a colour fill, go to Graphic Inspector and add Colour fill to the Text Box. Here I chose a custom grey colour (CMYK: 14, 10, 8, 0), but Silver from the Crayon Box in the Colour Viewer would work as well. Text box sits ‘on top’ of the background photo, resize the box so that the photo can be seen in wide margins all around the box;

– next type your text in the box as you would in a word processing document;

Click on colour well

– formatt the text in Text Inspector: here I centred the text, then aligned it to the centre of the box. Then highlight all text (Command+A), make it bigger and change colour to one that is similar to the main colour theme of the background photo. Here a preset colour from the Crayon Box – Cayenne – works well (CMYK: 11, 85, 96, 33);

Drag slider to reduce opacity

– next, click away, somewhere in the document, and then click again on the Text Box to select it as an object. Go to Graphic Inspector and click on the colour chooser (well) under the drop–down menu bar. Then in Colour Well reduce opacity to around 75 percent. Now you see that the background photo is just visible through the coloured Text Box and the text, which has the same main colour as the background, stands out and is clear and readable.

It’s a simple trick that adds striking effect to your designs. If you design a cover for a magazine or a brochure with a large photo that covers all space and goes over the edges(bleeds), this is one good way to make straplines (text) on the cover clear and visible. For print publications, including posters and cards, it is very important – passersby or people browsing in a news agent need to see instantly what’s in the magazine, or what the card is about.

Please read about 'Cover Design Tricks: Making Text Stand Out'. Note the semiopaque box in the bottom left corner of the cover. And also 'How to Outline Text in Pages' and 'Fading Out Background Image'.