T is for Technical

TemplateCloud Design Tactics – The best way to make sure your designs get approved!

TemplateCloud Design Library Reaches 10,000 Design Milestone

The TemplateCloud design library now has over 10,000 designs!

Congratulations to British Designer Paul Bullock who uploaded the 10,000th approved TemplateCloud design this week and won himself $150 for helping us to reach this new design milestone. You can take a look at Paul’s very festive winning design on the TemplateCloud website. Paul has been a Clouder from the very beginning and has over 100 designs selling via TemplateCloud’s partner retail sites.

Don’t forget you can still earn $8 in Advance Royalties for every design you upload. Read more about this here.

Happy designing!

Your designs now selling on Need A Print

We are pleased to announce that the TemplateCloud design library is now selling on needaprint.co.uk and needaprint.ie!

The library went live on the sites earlier today meaning that your designs are now selling to an even bigger UK and Irish audience. This increases your opportunities to sell royalties from all your existing designs as well as any future designs you upload to TemplateCloud.com.

You can take a look at your designs on the Need A Print websites today at needaprint.co.uk and needaprint.ie.

Practise Your V Layer Designing Techniques

To help you get to grips with our V layer technology, we’ve put together a simple step-by-step tutorial for you to practise on. This tutorial will walk you through the necessary stages to build a single sided A5 leaflet designed for a podiatrist. This leaflet uses V layers to create both a circular image and has a second image which features a circle shape overlaying the image. You can see what the final layout for your tutorial design should look like to the left.

To get started, download the InDesign files for the tutorial here and follow the instructions below.

How does it work?

To create a V layer you need to create a mask (or masks) of the shape you want to use and place it on its own layer. ‘Ë?V’ stands for vector which means that anything on a V layer must be a vector object – you cannot use images, EPS files or other graphic elements on a V layer.

Before you attempt our V Layers Tutorial, make sure you have read this post on basic V Layer design rules.

STEP 1 – Punch out a shape

Firstly you need to make the shaped, circular image in the bottom right hand corner of the design. To do this:

– Create a light grey rectangle the size of your A5 document.

– Create a circle shape at the size you wish the circular image to be (approximately 58mm in diameter).

– Place this over the rectangle at the point where you want the image to be displayed. Select both the rectangle and the circle and go to: Object > Pathfinder > Subtract in InDesign to ‘punch out’ the circle from your rectangle (below image).

– Create a new layer and call it ‘v_layer 1′ and place the rectangle shape on to it. Place the smaller foot image on its own layer called ‘Ë?Image 1′ and ensure it is below your new V layer.

– Put the 3 blue rectangle boxes for the text headers on to their own individual V layers (ie. ‘Ë?v_blue box 1 etc.). These should be above ‘v_layer 1′ in your layers palette and each text box will need to be above its V layer in the layer palette stacking order (see image to the right).

Don’t forget, only one element per editable layer.

 

STEP 2 – vector element over an image

Next you need to place a circular vector with text over an image. To do this:

– Place the larger image with several feet at the top of your InDesign document so that it spans the full width. It should be on its own layer (eg. ‘Ë?Image 2′). Make sure you leave the white box behind it on the background, this acts as a white ‘canvas’ behind the image in case the client deletes it.

– Create a turquoise blue vector circle and put it onto a new V layer (eg. ‘v_layer 2′)

– Create a slightly smaller grey circle and position it on top of your turquoise circle. Again put it on its own individual V layer (eg. ‘v_layer 3′).

– Position the promotional text box above the two circles on its own layer (see image to the left). Consider using Copyfit to give end clients more editing flexibility.

 

STEP 3 – check, finalise & upload

Once you’ve positioned all images, text boxes and V layers as described, separate out the remaining elements onto layers and check the layers palette to ensure they are in the right order.

Remember:

• Images should be below V layers
• Relevant text boxes should be above V layers
• Anything that overlaps a V layer must be editable or placed on another V layer

If you want to use non-standard shapes (eg. rounded corners, stars etc.), you will need to draw these yourself as no InDesign Object Effect or Corner Effect options are allowed on a V layer. A white vector rectangle with rounded corners has already been provided in the tutorial InDesign file for you to place the placeholder logo on (don’t forget this will need to be a V layer as it is placed over another V layer in the layers palette).

This is how your final design should look at the ‘Try Template’ stage (see image to the right above).

Use the Final Checklist below before uploading your design. When you upload and build your design, name it using your name and ‘V Layer Test’ in the title so we know to remove your design from the Design Approval List.

V Layers Final Checklist:

• Label your layer as v_ (v_layer 1 for instance)
• Only use vector shapes on V layers
• Only one item per V layer
• You can have more than one V layer per design
• Position any images that are to be editable through your V Layer below the V layer
• Remember that V layers aren’t editable by the end user

We’ll pay $800 each month for your designs!

TemplateCloud is an online marketplace where graphic designers – like you – can upload designs and earn unlimited royalties. You create designs for Flyers, Leaflets, Business Cards, Stationery, that kind of thing, then we turn them into editable templates for sale online.

We’re unique.

We sell your design templates via different websites across the world. Each time a customer uses your design, we pay you a royalty. We’ll also prepay you $8 each submission for up to 100 designs each month- that’s guaranteed. Getting started is easy, you just need Adobe InDesign and an internet connection, then just get creative.

If you need help with resources, you can even use Fotolia images. Just choose from millions of images in the image library and use them in your designs – for free! Read this article for more information.

So what are you waiting for? Visit TemplateCloud.com and start earning a guaranteed income for your designs.

Happy Designing!

Terms and Conditions:

1. One account per contributor.

2. TemplateCloud reserve the right to withdraw this offer at any time.

3. Payments can only be made directly into bank account provided.

4. All sales Royalties earned from the sale of designs pursuant to the template supply agreement will be offset against the total Advanced Template Royalties paid.

5. You may not terminate the template supply agreement until Template Royalties in respect of each design supplied pursuant to this promotion exceed the advance payment.

6. Offer limited to a maximum of 100 designs per contributor, per month, approved and accepted by us at our discretion.

How to use V Layers in your designs

 

Want to know how to create editable images behind vector objects?

We’ve added some new functionality to TemplateCloud that along with the new image library will help you make your designs even more flexible for the end user and help you sell more of your designs. It’s called V layers.

V layers mean that you can create irregular shaped editable images as well as having editable images behind locked vector graphics. The result of this is that elements such as images can now be editable along with overlaid text.

So how does it work?

It’s really easy to add this versatile function to your designs. All you need to do is create a mask (or masks) of the shape you want – essentially a vector object on it’s own layer. For example, in this design I’ve created a simple cyan rectangle in InDesign and then punched out 4 circles using the Objects > Pathfinder > Subtract tool:

Next, create a new layer. The layer should be labelled starting with ‘v_’ this is a v_ layer. V is for Vector (not versatile, but it sounded better as a header). Put the mask shape or vector object onto this layer. Your label should be labelled, for instance v_Mask 1. The three images in this example are then placed behind the mask in the layer order like this:

Once your V layer is in place you can then add your editable text as normal above it.

The example above has more than one V layer.

The extra layers (colored in brown) are for the white circles and the white lines on the artwork. You can add as many V layers as you like, but you can only have one vector element per v_layer.

This is how the same file looks to the end user:

Using a V layer gives you a great deal of creative flexibility when building your designs. For example the design below uses vector objects as V Layers that overlay an image, making the image behind editable. The two blue shapes are locked and the text on top is also made editable:

So here the image is editable and so is the ‘Need to get fitâ?¦â? text.

Key points:

• Label your layer as v_ (v_mask for instance)
• Only use vector shapes on V layers
• Only one item per V layer
• You can have more than one V layer per design
• Position any images that are to be editable through your V Layer below the V layer
• Remember that V layers aren’t editable by the end user

To see an onscreen demonstration of this, watch this video for more information. Or you can try our V Layers Tutorial to give you some extra practice.

Any questions post them below.

Happy designing!