How to Make an Open House Flyer Template in InDesign – Blancer.com Tutorials and projects

Final product image — What You’ll Be Creating

Learn how to make a flyer in InDesign in this easy-to-follow tutorial. It’s flexible and easy to adapt to any kind of business or branding guidelines.

Create an eye-catching open house flyer template that’s easy to put together, editable, and versatile. This flyer design is guaranteed to do the right job and catch the attention you or your clients need.

In this tutorial, we will look into setting up InDesign flyer templates the right away. We will be looking into Layers, Color Swatches, and Paragraph Styles. We will also dive into key techniques on how to format text frames.

Looking for other ‘how to make a flyer’ or ‘InDesign template’ tutorials? Scroll all the way down and take a look at our suggestions!

In a hurry? We’ve got amazing InDesign flyer templates and other InDesign templates over at Envato Elements and GraphicRiver. Go check them out!

What You Will Need

You’ll need access to Adobe InDesign. If you don’t have the software, you can download a trial from the Adobe website. You’ll also need:

Download the assets and make sure the font is installed on your system before starting. When you are ready, we can dive into this flyer design tutorial!

1. Setting Up an Open House Flyer Template in an InDesign File

Step 1

In InDesign, go to File > New. Name the document Open House Flyer. We will create a letter size InDesign flyer template. Set the file to the following dimensions:

Width to 8.5 in
Height to 11 in
Orientation to Portrait
Units to Inches
Pages to 1
Number of Columns to 3
Gutter to 0.25 in
Margins: to 0.5 in
Bleeds to 0.125 in (it’s best to seek your professional printer’s preference)

Click Create.

Step 2

For this open house flyer template tutorial, we will work with three Layers. Organizing layers is an important practice when designing a template.

Bring up the Layers panel by going to Window > Layers. Double-click on Layer 1 and rename it Images.

On the Layers panel main menu, select New Layer. Name it Text. Click OK.

Remember to switch between these two layers when creating elements. This will help your client edit the InDesign flyer template easily.

Step 3

Head over to Window > Color > Swatches to expand the Swatches panel. Choose New Color Swatch button from the main menu. Set the Swatch Name and values to the following:

Yellow: C=0 M=20 Y=100 K=0
Light Blue: C=70 M=10 Y=15 K=15
Dark Blue: C=100 M=70 Y=45 K=35

Click Add and OK after you input each of the color values.

Step 4

For this tutorial, we will create a list of Paragraph Styles that we will use to format parts of the flyer design.

Head over to Window > Styles > Paragraph Styles to open the Paragraph Styles panel. On the main menu, select New Paragraph Style, and set the Style Name to Title. Select the Basic Character Formats option from the left side menu. Use the following settings:

Font Family: Quadran
Font Style: Bold
Size: 14 pt

Select the Character Color option from the left side menu. Set the color to the Light Blue swatch. Click OK.

Add a new Paragraph Style, set the Style Name to Body Copy and use the following settings:

Font Family: Quadran
Font Style: Light
Size: 11 pt

Select the Character Color option from the left side menu. Set the color to the Dark Blue swatch. Click OK.

Add a new Paragraph Style, set the Style Name to Details, and use the following settings:

Font Family: Quadran
Font Style: Medium
Size: 12 pt

Select the Character Color option from the left side menu. Set the color to the [Paper] swatch. Click OK.

Add a new Paragraph Style, set the Style Name to Information Details, and use the following settings:

Font Family: Quadran
Font Style: Regular
Size: 10 pt

Select the Character Color option from the left side menu. Set the color to the [Paper] swatch. Click OK.

Step 5

To create horizontal guides, head over to Layout > Create Guides. Under Rows, set the Number to 15 and the Gutter to 0.25 in.

Under Options, set the Fit Guides to: Margins. Click OK.

2. Designing Your Open House InDesign Flyer Template

Step 1

On the Layers panel, select the Text layer.

Let’s start by designing the top of this InDesign flyer template. Head over to the toolbar, and select the Rectangle Tool (M). Click on the document to open the Rectangle Tool option window. In the Rectangle option window, set the Width to 2.96 in and the Height to 3.79 in. Click OK.

Place the rectangle in the top left corner of the page and align it to the bleeds.

place the rectangle on the top left corner

Step 2

Select the Text Tool (T) from the toolbar. Click on the rectangle we created to convert it into a text box. Press Command-B to open the Text Frame Options window.

Change the Inset Spacing to the following settings:

Top: 0.625 in
Bottom: 0.125 in
Left: 0.625 in
Right: 0.125 in

Click OK.

use the text frame options to add inset spacing

Step 3

Using the Text Tool (T), add text to the frame. Using the Paragraph Styles, set the text to the Details style.

Paragraph styles allow us to edit the style of the text individually after setting a specific style. In this case, we will change the ‘Open House’ text. While I used the same font, I used the Light and Bold font families for the first and second lines respectively. Set the Size to 43 pt and the Leading to 40 pt.

To create contrast and call attention to the price of the property, I used Yellow from the Swatches panel.

add text and format using the paragraph styles

Step 4

On the Layers panel, select the Image layer.

Press Command-D to Place an image. Select the Modern house with garden file and click OK.

You can place the image by clicking on the document or by drawing a rectangle right after clicking OK. In this case, draw a rectangle covering columns two and three of the top right corner of the page. Don’t forget to cover the bleeds as well.

Step 5

Another way of adding images is by first drawing image frames on the page where you’d like the images to go. In this case, we will be working on the first column. Using the Rectangle Tool (M), draw a rectangle that covers the width of the first column and three rows. Leave the height of the gutter as a space in between. Use the image below as an example.

create three rectangles on the first column

Step 6

Press Command-D to Place images. You can select multiple files by clicking on one file and holding Command to select other files. Select Modern dining room, Two tables in bright kitchen, and Business woman with coffee. Click OK.

Click on each of the frames to Place the images.

Step 7

On the Layers panel, select the Text layer.

Using the Text Tool (T), draw a text frame that fits the second and third column in width. For the height, you can make it as short or long as you need. In my case, I will be placing a realtor profile at the bottom, so I will be making this text frame a tad shorter. Add text and use the Paragraph Style to style the text.

draw a text box on columns 2 and 3 Use the paragraph styles to format the text

Step 8

If you add bullet points and would like to divide them into two columns, you can do this without formatting the entire text frame. Using the text frame, select the text that you’d like to split into columns.

Open the Paragraph panel by going to Window > Type & Tables > Paragraph. Click on Paragraph panel main menu and select Span Columns. In the Span Columns option window, use the following settings:

Paragraph Layout: Split Column
Sub-columns: 2
Inside Gutter: 0.25 in

Click OK.

split part of the text into two columns using the span columns option

Below, you can see we’ve successfully split part of the text into two columns.

Step 9

Using the Rectangle Tool (M), draw a square that measures 1.16 in in Width and Height. Press Command-D and select the Business woman with coffee image. Click OK. Click on the square to place the image.

Using the Direct Selection Tool (A), select the image. Head over to the Control bar and set the Scale percentage to 17%. Use the Direct Selection Tool (A) to move the image and center the subject within the square. Align the profile picture to the last image in the first column.

Step 10

Using the Text Tool (T), create a text frame that fits the height of the profile image and takes up the rest of the width of the page.

Using the Swatches panel, set the color to [Black] and the Tint to 20%.

Step 11

Select the frame and press Command-B to access the Text Frame Options window. Set the Inset Spacing to 0.125 in on all sides.

Add text and use the Paragraph Styles panel to format it. Use the Swatches panel to change the color of the title to Dark Blue.

Step 12

Using the Text Tool (T), draw a text box that has a Width of 8.7 in and a Height of 1 in. Press Command-B to open the Text Frame Options. Set the Inset Spacing options to the following settings:

Top: 0.125 in
Bottom: 0.625 in
Left: 0.625 in
Right: 0.625 in

Using the Swatches panel, set the color to Dark Blue.

create a rectangle at the bottom of the flyer and use the text frame option to add inset spacing

Step 13

Using the Text Tool (T), add contact information. Set the Paragraph style to Contact Details. Change the color on the Swatches panel to [Paper].

add text and format the text with the paragraph styles opttion

3. How to Export a File for Printing

Before exporting a file for printing, it is useful to take a look around all the edges of the flyer design. This is to make sure all the images and vectors bleeding out are touching the bleeds.

Step 1

To export the file, go to File > Export. Name the file Open House Flyer and choose Adobe PDF (Print) from the Format dropdown menu. Click Save.

Step 2

In the Export Adobe PDF window, set the Adobe PDF Preset to Press Quality.

select the press quality option from the adobe pdf preset

On the left side of the panel, select Marks and Bleeds. Check All Printer’s Marks and Use Document Bleed Settings. Click Export. You will have a ready-to-print PDF file.

under marks and bleeds check the all printers marks and use document bleed settings options

Great Job! You’ve Finished This Tutorial!

In this tutorial, we learned how to make a flyer template. This open house flyer template is easy to change up and customise, making it super easy for your clients. We covered key tools to set up an easily editable flyer template. Today, we learned to: