QuarkXPress How-To: Creating Shaped Text Boxes and Columns

This story is taken from “QuarkXPress 6 for Print and Web Design.”

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A recurring layout that I like to see is to be found on the op-ed pages of The New York Times. For some opinion columns, Times designers turn the text box into a graphic that reflects the subject of the piece. For example, a column about NASA might be shaped like a rocket ship with the actual text contained within its contours. It’s very clever, and I’m often somewhat stunned to see such playfulness in the staid Times.
Not every layout warrants this treatment, of course, but if the Times can do it so can you. Text columns don’t have to be plain rectangles. In fact some subjects beg for extraordinary treatment. Try adding curves to your columns. Make your next frame jagged. A simple skew will do, too.

In this excerpt from “QuarkXPress 6 for Print and Web Design,” Germany’s top designer Michael Baumgardt shares a few of his favorite ideas for making unusual column shapes.
We’ve posted this excerpt as a PDF file. All you do is click this link “Shaped text Boxes and Columns” to open the PDF file in your Web browser. You can also download the PDF to your machine for later viewing.
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Excerpted from “QuarkXPress 6 for Print and Web Design” © 2004 Michael Baumgardt. Reproduced by permission of Pearson Education, Inc. Publishing as Peachpit Press. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.
 

  • anonymous says:

    This is easier in InDesign CS

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