▶️ Highlight Key Words with Custom Tags in InDesign [Card at Work: 15]

Laying out a card game but your team members don't have indesign? Spreadsheets don't keep character formatting either, so that's no help. How can your team call out key words for you to style? Custom tags!

Using a library of customized plain text tags makes it easy to know which words need to be styled a particular way. By setting up a few simple GREP styles in InDesign, those tags will automatically highlight and style those key words like magic. All you have to do is merge the records in DataMerge as usual and InDesign does the rest of the work for you.

Hope you find this useful! Support more videos at patreon.com/danielsolis!

Card at Work: 11 - Inserting Optional Line Breaks with DataMerge

It's a new episode of Card at Work, the video series covering the basics of designing cards for tabletop games!

This time we're building on the GREP tricks from the last episode on inline icons and using similar technique to insert optional line breaks within a single cell of a spreadsheet. Using this method, you can drop a line break into a single block of text without needing a manual line break in the InDesign template itself OR using a find-replace after merging the document.

This is my first Card at Work episode in HD resolution. I'm slowly figuring out Adobe Premiere so hopefully these episodes will be even higher quality as time goes on.

P.S. I'll be streaming today live at around noon EST. I'll be working on a new round of layout updates for Chimera Station from Tasty Minstrel Games at http://www.twitch.tv/danielsolis81.

Support more videos at my Patreon!

Card at Work: 9 - Making a 3x3 Card Sheet

Howdy! Looks like I forgot to post the latest episodes of Card at Work to the ol' blog here. Sorry about that! For new folks, Card at Work is my video series covering the basics of designing cards for tabletop games.

I figured, what could be more appropriate for Episode 9 than to talk about making 3x3 card sheets? :) Check it out at the video above.

The previous episode covered variable front-and-back card designs.

Thanks for watching! I hope you find these videos useful. Support more videos at my Patreon!

Card at Work: 7 — Designing a CCG Template, Part 2

Yay! Here's the conclusion of the 2-part lesson in designing a CCG-style prototype card template. I hope you find this useful as I discuss inserting variable icon images into inline variable text, among other useful little tricks.

The next series of videos will cover a few miscellaneous lessons like how to set up 3x3 card sheets and make variable lines separating sections of body text. Then we'll go into a deeper case study of how I designed the cards for an early version of A La Kart.

Hope you enjoy the videos! Please support the series at Patreon!

Card at Work: 6 – Designing a CCG Template, Part 1

It's a new episode of Card At Work! This time we start a multi-part lesson in how to design a more complex CCG style template for InDesign's DataMerge. This is a big topic so I first put together all of the basic placeholders and assets in this episode. The next episode will cover how to connect everything together with DataMerge. Hope you dig!


Please like, share, and subscribe! Support further episodes at http://www.patreon.com/danielsolis

Card at Work: 5 – Designing Poker Cards and Troubleshooting DataMerge

It's time for a new episode of Card at Work, this time covering how to design a deck of playing cards in Adobe InDesign's DataMerge. This mostly follows the same techniques established in the previous episode, but the latter half also covers some troubleshooting you may need to do when you're designing your own deck.

The last episode drew some feedback asking for more supplementary assets to go alongside the video content. I'd love to hear more about what you would like to see, especially as exclusives for patrons. For now, here's an oldie-but-goodie posted back in 2012, but goes along well with this episode.

https://docs.google.com/open?id=0Bzba7Uiit9gpSlJyOVR0cGN6SGs

That contains an InDesign file and support for a simple deck of playing cards using Noun Project icons. Hope that helps get you started on your way!

Card at Work: 4 - Introduction to DataMerge

Hello folks! It's a new episode of Card At Work, my ongoing series of lessons on graphic design in tabletop games, particularly cards.

This episode introduces the basics of using DataMerge to create prototype cards. This lesson covers how to make simple resource cards like you might find in a euro strategy game such as Settlers of Catan.

Please like, share, and subscribe! Support further episodes at http://www.patreon.com/danielsolis

Thank you!

Card at Work: Episode 2 - Prototype Tools and Techniques

This episode covers the tools and techniques of making quick paper prototypes. I've discovered that other designers tend to use big bulky paper cutters, but I prefer this quick and efficient method of getting multiple sheets cut simultaneously. It's a little dangerous though, so be very careful with those blades!

Card at Work is a web series about designing cards for tabletop games. Support the release of more episodes at my patreon! Thank you!

Card At Work: A New Series on Card Design

Hi folks! A while back I announced that I would expand my Patreon to broader game production assets, including releasing my paywalled videos to the public. Well here we go! The first episodes of Card at Work are now on youtube. First start with Episode 0, which explains the overall premise and goal of the series.

And Episode 1 which combines the first couple of video lessons that had been behind a paywall previously.

Thanks so much for your support! Please subscribe to my Patreon to get episodes more frequently!