BiBi Cards

InDesign

Oh my goodness! BiBi cards were at points so difficult and tedious. I kept thinking I had everything measured then I'd go to the computer lab and find that I was missing measurements so I had to go back and forth. I eventually learned to take a ruler to the lab with me because I was sure I'd need it again.

The first program I used to make the BiBi card was Quark Xpress. At first I thought that Quark Xpress was difficult until I started using InDesign. I began to love Quark Xpress. It is easier to figure out and all the tools you'd need are right at your finger tips. There is no need to go looking around. The hardest part of my BiBi card was doing the blue and green Wired logo. First off, I could not find colors to match. Second, I could not figure out how to do the 3-D effect. I'm hoping that I will eventually figure out how to create that effect because it would be a very useful tool.

The fonts for my BiBi card were easy to find, except for the one that says "Just $1 an issue!" I could not find that font on the computer so I improvised. I used the font "cracked" and added more spacing to make it look similar to the original.

InDesign drove me crazy. I thought it was going to be as easy as Quark, but I stumbled upon one very big problem. When I opened up my document it was not in inches, it was in picas. I have never heard of picas in my life. All I knew was the ruler was not at all what I wanted and all of my measurements were wrong. I had no idea that I was using the wrong measurements. I became so aggravated with InDesign. When I found out that I had to start over in inches my heart dropped. I could not imagine doing all of this over again. All I could think of is how I would be working on it for endless hours and wouldn't be able to do the rest of my work. Once I started I was out of the computer lab in two hours. It was remarkable how much easier InDesign became when I was using the correct metric system. I also had trouble figuring out how to add spaces between the letters in InDesign so I googled it. I looked up kerning in InDesign and it gave me a neat shortcut, option+right arrow(or left) depending on which way you want the letters to move. This made my life so much easier and it was faster as well.

The backs of the BiBi cards came out relatively similar in both programs, but the front sides are not exactly the same. As you can see from the snapshots, there are different blues and different greens used for the logo and the "Just $1 an issue!" I tested different colors, but were unable to match the BiBi card colors in the different programs. Neither of these colors match the card itself either. I had a lot of trouble with matching colors. The InDesign card is closest to the original color once printed.

If given the choice. I would still choose Quark Xpress. It is definitely my program of choice for creating BiBi cards.

Quark Xpress