How to Make a Flyer

Flyers are great for drawing attention to events, publicising special offers and just generally promoting your business. Plus, you don’t have to be a design whiz to produce effective flyers for your business. 
Follow our step-by-step guides for flyer making on common software programmes to get started producing great designs for your company. If you get stuck at any point, don’t worry – just give our team a buzz on 0191 27 27 327 and we’ll be happy to help you out.

What Is A Flyer?

To produce a truly great flyer, first you need to understand what a flyer is and what it’s for. 

A flyer is a small, versatile type of print marketing. They’ve been used for centuries to advertise everything from products and services to events, concerts and more. They can be distributed in person, sent by mail, or with permission, they can be posted on signs or left in public places like cafes and shops.

The huge variety of ways you can use flyers makes them a great investment. They’re particularly good if your business has a strong pull with a local audience.

How To Make A Flyer On Word

Microsoft Word is a great tool if you’re just starting out in design. It’s easy to use and most people are already familiar with it. Follow the steps below to get started.

Set your Margins

Margins limit where you can put content on a page and are useful for stopping you putting design too close to the edge of a flyer, where text and images might get cut off. To set margins:

1. Go to Layout > Page Setup 
2. Increase all Margins by 3mm
3. Go to Size and choose your paper size from the drop-down menu
4. Go to View and tick the boxes to show Ruler and Gridlines

To check that you’ve set up enough space for your full design to print, use our handy bleed guide. 

Add a Background

To add colour and shapes to your background:

1.    Go to Insert > Shapes
2.    Select the shape you want and click and drag on your page to draw it
3.    Use the Format tab to choose colour, shape outline and effects
4.    Repeat as necessary to create the background you want
 

Inserting Textboxes

To control exactly where you want your text to appear, use textboxes in Word. To create them:

1.    Go to Insert > Textboxes and choose a design
2.    Draw your text box by clicking and dragging your mouse where you want it to appear. Resize using the corner handles
3.    Edit the shape and colour of your box in the Format tab
4.    Enter you text and use the Home tab to edit the font, colour and size of your copy

Adding Images

Images are a great way to bring flyers to life. To get the most from your images, make sure they are at least 300dpi (dots per inch), so they’re clear when printed. To insert using Word:

1.    Go to Insert > Pictures
2.    Select the image you want to use, and press Insert
3.    If your picture appears behind other elements, right click and select Bring to Front > Bring Forward to correct
4.    Use the corner handles to resize and drag into position
5.    Use the Format tab to select borders and effects
6.    To make your text wrap around your images right click select Wrap Text and pick the option you want
To make sure your design gets to us exactly how you want it, save a version of it as a PDF by going to Save As and selecting PDF as the file type in drop-down menu.
 

How To Make A Flyer In Photoshop CS6

Photoshop can be a bit more complex to use than Word, but it’s a specific photo-editing software so the results are likely to be better. To make a flyer using Photoshop CS6 try the steps below.

Setting up your Flyer

1.    Create a new document with dimensions 216mm x 154mm (A5 paper with 3mm bleed)
2.    Set Colour to CMYK Colour and Resolutions to 300 Pixels/Inch
3.    Press Okay
4.    Make your bleed area visible by pressing Ctrl + U and moving the lines that appear to 3mm from the edge of your image on all sides of your document.

Creating your Background

Photoshop works by creating different layers in your image for each stage that you add. To add a background layer:
1.    Press Shift + Ctrl + N to create a new layer
2.    Adjust the colour of your layer using the sliders in the colour tab on the right of screen
3.    Use the Shape tools on the left-hand tool bar to add different shapes to your background
4.    Once you have added your shapes, use the Colour tab to adjust
5.    If wanted, use the Direct Selection tool to alter your shapes to create waves and other features

Adding Images 

1.    Go to File > Open
2.    Select image press Open > Enter, position the image using the Move tool
3.    To resize go to Layers and select the image you want to resize
4.    Select Edit > Free Transform and adjust using the corner handles
5.    Choose any filters you want to apply using the Filter tab
Make sure all the images you want to use are at least 300dpi to get the best quality print.

Inserting Text

1.    Select the Text tool (looks like a T) from the left-hand menu
2.    Click and drag where you want your text to appear and stat typing
3.    Use the menu at the top of screen to choose font size, alignment and colour
4.    Click and hold the Text tool for additional options like vertical text typing
 

How To Make A Flyer In Indesign
 

Another piece of Adobe software that’s great for making flyers is InDesign. InDesign is great for easily pulling together eye-catching layouts, making it perfect for developing print marketing. To design a flyer:
Set up your Flyer

1.    Go to File > New > Document
2.    Set Intent as print, Page Size as letter and select your orientation
3.    Press Create

Add a Background

To add a colourful background to your image:

1.    Select the Rectangle tool from the left-hand menu 
2.    Click and drag to draw your rectangle as your background
3.    Go to the Swatches panel and select the colour you want

Insert Images

Use images to add extra detail to your flyer and engage your audience. Remember to use images of 300dpi or more to get the best results. To insert images on InDesign:

1.    Choose File > Place and select the image you want to insert. 
2.    Drag the image with your mouse to position it
3.    To resize, go to Edit > Free Transform and the drag the corner handles.
 

Adding Text

1.    Select the Text tool in the left-hand menu (the capital T)
4.    Click and drag where you want your text box to appear
5.    Use the menu at the top of the screen to choose font, size and colour then write your copy

Remember to play around with these tools. You can use all the features mentioned in the guides to each of these software programmes to add as many or as few layers, images and text boxes as you like to create the right flyer for your business.

If you have any problems at all trying to set up and design your flyers, give our team a shout on 0191 27 27 327. We’ll be happy to give you a hand getting your products ready to send to us for printing.