In this article, readers learn about creating and stylizing text within their customer service page using tools such as the type frame, bolding, and column creation. We also cover concepts like tracking, dimensioning, and adding images to the text for a more aesthetic and attention-grabbing layout.
Key Insights
- The article provides step-by-step guidance on using the type tool to create a large typeframe, highlight relevant text for the customer service page, and stylize the text by creating columns, adjusting the gutter, and bolding certain sections.
- Readers learn how to enhance the visual appeal of their page through adding a rectangular frame behind key values, adjusting the font and spacing, and adding images to the text.
- Finally, the article emphasizes the importance of saving the work periodically and offers a glimpse into the next topic: working on tables.
Note: These materials offer prospective students a preview of how our classes are structured. Students enrolled in this course will receive access to the full set of materials, including video lectures, project-based assignments, and instructor feedback.
In this video, we'll be working on our Customer Service page. Let's hit W, and we're going to start by inputting the information that we need.
We'll utilize our Type tool, and we're simply going to drag a large text frame here and release. Next, let's get the information that's relevant for our Customer Service. We'll open up our folder and again open up our Web Materials page. From here, we'll see that we have our Customer Service in the middle of this page, and let's highlight all of this text.
In addition, it's important to note that we have some bold text right in the middle for the three Customer Service philosophies. They’re also bolded right at the beginning of each paragraph. So let's keep this in mind as we style this.
Next, going into our text frame that we've created within Customer Service, we'll hit CTRL+V to paste our text, and let's remove a couple of these extra spaces by hitting Backspace. Rather than working with one long text frame here, let's work with columns. To do this, we'll use our Selection tool, and with it selected, we'll go to Properties. Going down towards the bottom, we have the ability to change the columns within the text frame. We'll change it to two columns, and from here, we can also change our gutter, or the space right in between the columns.
If you want to make it a bit larger, like 0.25, we can do so. And if we click outside and hit W, we'll see the results. One important hint is that I sometimes have trouble trying to create two columns, and this is often because I'm clicking inside of the text frame and then unable to find the columns. If you have this trouble, utilize the Selection tool and make sure that you have the frame selected rather than the Type tool selected.
Next, let's plan how we want this text to look on the page. I think we want to drag it up a little bit so they're a bit more even. However, for this right here, I think we want these three values to be called out, so let's create a little bit more space for these to be in here. We'll hit ENTER twice, and within this space, we'll create a box behind to really highlight these three values.
We'll then utilize our Selection tool and make sure that we have all of the text included. Additionally, let's also copy this text right here by hitting CTRL+C on the keyboard to copy, and now let's create a rectangle over the top. We'll click and drag, leaving a space between, and we'll remove our stroke. Next, let's paste the text right inside the rectangle.
We'll use our Type tool to click and hit CTRL+V. We'll then hit CTRL+A to select all, and let's change up the styling. We'll increase it to 16 points, and we'll make it Chivo Bold. Also, we don't need to align it to the baseline grid. From here, let's use our Selection tool, and we're going to center it within the frame. Remember to right-click and go to Text Frame Options to change our Baseline Options.
Change the offset from Ascent to Cap Height, and let's also simply add some inset spacing. With it all linked, we'll click up, and I like the look of this at 0.375. We'll then hit OK. We'll see that we have one extra space here, which we'll remove. Additionally, let's hit CTRL+A and space these out a bit more.
We'll add a little bit more leading by clicking up, and now they're spaced out nicely. Great—this looks good.
While there is text below this, we can't see it because of the rectangle, and so we don't really need to worry about deleting it. Next, let's style the text of each of the values within the paragraphs. We'll select these right here, and let's change it from Regular to Bold Italic. From here, we want it to stand out just a bit more, so let's also change up the tracking.
I'm going to click up, and we're just going to increase the character spacing to bring a bit more attention to it. We can also increase the size here, and I like the look of this. So with this now highlighted, let's create a new Character Style.
From here, we'll click the plus sign to create a new Character Style, and let's call this In-Paragraph Bold and hit ENTER. From here, we can then highlight these other values here, selecting In-Paragraph Bold, and now we've effectively added a little bit more dimension to this page of text.
Finally, let's add one more image using our Rectangle Frame tool. We'll click and drag the frame, and again, feel free to add whatever image you'd prefer. I'm going to use this one here. We'll right-click, select Fitting, and choose Fill Frame Proportionally.
Additionally, if you want to change the dimensions or the angle, feel free to do so. I'm going to leave mine right about there. If we hit W, we can see a preview of both of these pages, and this looks pretty good.
So let's go down to pages 12 and 13 and save our work by hitting CTRL+S on the keyboard to save, and in the next video, we'll begin working on tables. See you there!