So the basic design of the ad is starting to take shape. I’ve set up the space for the client’s message and ad at the top, the event locations at the bottom, and the space for the calendar text in the middle. Now to setting up the style sheets for the calendar text. This will make it easier to color match the calendar text to the locations.

First, I enter some of the sample text of local events provided by the ad rep. Each entry has the day, a letter that coordinated to the location guide at the bottom, and a description of the event and the time.

Next I set up the style sheets. This time I used character style sheets because there will be more than one style per paragraph in this set of text. I started with the date, which is simply Times 8 pt bold (I know, kind of lazy to use Times, but why waste time looking through the hundreds of other fonts when I’d probably end up using something that looks exactly the same to the typical reader?)

Then I set up style sheets, based on the date style, corresponding to each of the letters in the location guide at the bottom. Each is named for the letter with the text set to the same color. I initially set the whole text box in the date style sheet, then highlighted the text to be changed and chose the appropriate style sheet (the eyedropper tool comes in handy here, actually). As we add to or change the calendar information, we can just choose the proper style for the text, rather than having to remember which color goes with what.

Here’s a look at how May and June were initially looking

At this point, the ad rep took a copy to the client to see for the first time, thus beginning the revision process. That will be in the next installment.