Category Archives: How-To

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How to create Brayered Labels & Cards by Korin Sutherland

Sweet and Sassy Stamps

Supplies:

  • Stamp set (I used Dream Silhouettes by Sweet ‘n Sassy Stamps)
  • Rubber Brayer (for info about brayers visit this site)
  • Worldlabel (or other brand) mailing labels: any size will do really, but for this particular card I used 1″x 2 5/8″ inkjet mailing labels
  • Kaleidacolor Ink pad by Tsukineko (I used Royal Satin) or other spectrum type pad (a solid color would work too if you don’t have the other kinds)
  • Black Ink (I used Memento Tuxedo Black by Tsukineko)
  • Cardstock: neutral and various colors to coordinate with your ink Embellishments

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How to Remove Labels from Boxes and Jars

Do you like to recycle boxes and jars? If you do, you probably have been through the “I’ve gotta remove this label” routine at least once. You don’t want others to know your address if you reuse a box for mailing, and you want to use new labels on jars that you reuse for canning or storage. To help you out, we’ve included some tips below that will make this label-removing task a bit easier for you.

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Designing a Business Card with WL-OL244 Template

Although I no longer bother to print letterhead or envelopes for my design business (thank you, email!), I’d be lost without a business card. Not only are business cards still traded in the real world, but often it’s the business card itself that helps generate business. Plus, if you’re a graphic designer like me, having a good looking card acts like a mini-portfolio of your skills.

With this in mind, in this tutorial I’ll show how simple it really is to create an effective card that will impress potential clients and help them to remember your name. All this with just a small rectangle of paper. Here goes.

Although business cards often come in many shapes and sizes, for this exercise we’re assuming you want to create a standard U.S. cards measuring 31/2 x 2 inches. Before we get to working with the WL-OL244 template (Download the Template [PDF]), we’ll start by creating one card only. Once we’re happy with the card I’ll show you how to bring it into the eight-up template.

by Scott Citron

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How to Clean a Beyond-Filthy Printer

Clean that printer!Do you know that printers need to be cleaned to function at top capacity? How dirty is your printer? If you don’t know, we can walk you through the steps to clean that filthy little bugger, no matter if it’s an ink-jet or laser printer.

There are certain steps to follow no matter which printer you own. First, collect a soft cloth, cleaning fluid made for plastic (water is the best) and find your printer manual. Your manufacturer may provide specific instructions for cleaning your printer. If so, you can stop reading now. Otherwise, continue to learn how to make your printer look and act like new.

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Design a Print Ready Business Card

Despite the digital wave that’s taking over everyday life, the good old business card is still a highly useful tool for any professional. Follow this walkthrough to produce your own modern and stylish business card in Adobe Illustrator, and mock up the design onto the business card template ready for production with Worldlabel.com

Begin by launching Adobe Illustrator and creating a new document, enter the dimensions of 3.5inches by 2inches – the standard size for the business cards at Worldlabel.com. This is a job for print, so choose the CMYK color mode.

With the Rectangle Tool, single click on the artboard to bring up the options box, enter 3.5inches by 2inches to create a background rectangle the exact size of the card.

Fill the rectangle with your chosen colour, here I’m using Cyan (100c, 0m, 0y, 0k), then align the rectangle centrally to the artboard using the Align Palette.

With the Type Tool, begin writing out your name and set in a font of your preference. Here I’m using the classic; Lubalin Graph in two weights to add an element of style to the design. Pay close attention to the tracking and kerning of the words to perfect their appearance.

Continue typing out the elements which will be shown on the business card such as job title, contact details and website URL.

Draw in four guides onto the artboard 0.25inches into the document, this helps balance the design elements. Arrange the type onto the design, using variations in size to provide a visual hierarchy that gives focus to the important aspects of the design.

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How to Conserve Ink and Toner

You already know how to manage greener business print jobs. But, how can you conserve ink and toner? You probably need that printer for odd jobs, but tools exist that can help you save money and conserve products that can damage the environment. It all begins with the type of printer you use and the ink it requires. But, if you’re stuck on that printer because of budget concerns, let’s go from there…
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Two Excellent Photoshop Label Tutorials

Photoshop Tutorial by Pariah S. Burke

If you use Photoshop, then you have a tool on hand that you can use to design labels. And, you don’t need to re-invent the wheel, because you have access to two great Photoshop tutorials at hand. The first tutorial, written by Pariah S. Burke, shows how to build and re-use a label template for items such as the business cards shown above.

Using Photoshop and Worldlabel Label Templates, Burke – a noted author, graphic designer and Photoshop guru – shows users how to create a template in Photoshop step-by-step. The result is a PDF that you can reuse over and over. And, if you’re not as comfortable with Photoshop as you are with Illustrator or even InDesign, Burke shows how the same PDF label templates from WorldLabel.com work equally well in those applications with a remarkably similar procedure. Read the complete tutorial at Photoshopsupport.com

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How to Use Mail Merge with AbiWord and KOffice

If you have read Solveig Haugland’s “Mail Merge in Openoffice.org: Everything You Need to Know,” then you already know how to use mail merge to reduce your workload in one free and open source software application (FOSS). However, OpenOffice.org is not the only FOSS application you can use for mail merge. You can also use AbiWord or KWord to get the same advantages.

Both AbiWord and KOffice were originally built for GNU/Linux, but both now have versions for Mac OS X and Windows as well. AbiWord is a standalone word processor, while KWord is part of KOffice, which started as an office suite for KDE, one of the most popular interfaces for GNU/Linux. Although neither AbiWord nor KWord has as many features of OpenOffice.org, both are developed enough for many users’ needs. Some people prefer them because they are smaller and faster than OpenOffice.org, and therefore run better on older and slower computers.

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