Design a Black-and-White Promotional Mailer on a Budget – Psd Plus Tutorial

Oct 14th in News by Mark Mayers

We have another Psd Plus tutorial exclusively available to Plus members today. If you want to take your Photoshop, Illustrator, and InDesign integration skills to the next level, then we have an exciting promotional mailer for you. It's also focused on making a creative print project come to life on a budget. Learn more at the jump!

Author: Mark Mayers

Hi everyone! I’m an illustrator and print designer from Cornwall in the UK. I’ve been using Photoshop since version 3. I also contribute tutorials for some of the worlds leading creative publications. Head over to my website where you can see more of my work.

This Plus Tutorial is Filled with Creative Tips

Working within a limited budget is a discipline that every designer must master – especially in the current economic climate. Knowing how to squeeze every last drop from a tight budget and still produce something eye catching requires some understanding of different printing techniques.

In this tutorial, we'll forget about expensive four-color printing and limit ourselves to just one spot color – black! Working in black-and-white is more challenging and also imposes limits on the design process – done right, its simplicity and stark contrast will capture and engage the viewer.

As well as rediscovering the beauty of monochrome, you'll also add a clear, gloss spot UV varnish to selective areas; this will have the effect of highlighting and drawing attention to parts of the design when the printed piece is moved under different light conditions. So, as a perfect example to showcase these techniques, I briefed myself to design an A5, double-sided, self-promotional mailer.

As far a techniques go, you'll learn how to use an additional Alpha channel to create the spot varnish artwork; then create your own geometric pattern library with Illustrator. Next we'll show you how to bring everything together with InDesign. Finally, you'll get to grips with preflighting your artwork with InDesign and Acrobat Professional – ensuring it's error-free and printer-friendly.

Plus members can Log in and Download! If you're not a member, you can of course join today! Below is the final image we'll be creating in this tutorial.

Professional and Detailed Instructions Inside

Plus members can Log in and Download! Otherwise, Join Now! Below are some sample images from this tutorial.

PSD Plus Membership

As you know, we run a premium membership system here called 'Plus' that costs $9 a month (or $22 for 3 months!) which gives members access to the Source files for tutorials as well as periodic extra tutorials, like this one! You'll also get access to Net Plus and Vector Plus, too. If you're a Plus member, you can log in and download the tutorial. If you're not a member, you can of course join today!

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