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As a novice, I've been made to create a brand book, coolio.

I've researched all the parts of what I want and should include in my brand book, the logo and colours have been approved, and I've written down my layout and how I want things to go. The only issue is, I've never personally made something like this before.

Is it possible to create this in illustrator? Even if it's for print? My thought process would be similar to creating carousels for Instagram.

i.e Having two artboards aligned against each other, that way the design looks seamless when printed or viewed on the web. I would, of course, have to play around with the cover page and back page artboard when it comes to print/web view.

But can it be done like this?

I know some people may just say "Use Indesign", however, I'm working to meet certain deadlines and I can't exactly afford to learn a new software by the time I'm required to make this. (Unless it's like an hour or two).

Thanks for any help <3

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Sure.

InDesign has a much more robust text engine as well as things like Master Pages, Story Editor, Book, Table of Contents, Index, etc. features. So, InDesign is better equipped for books in almost all instances.

However, if you are looking at creating something with a small page count, no Table of Contents, no Index, and don't really need the other features in InDesign ... you can certainly use Illustrator for such a task.

The largest problem you may have with Illustrator is consistency of common elements from artboard to artboard since AI offers no feature similar to InDesign's Master Pages. Of course, you can easily manually create consistency with enough care.

And, you'll need to configure artboards properly. You can't output "spreads" to PDF from Illustrator, which is merely a single tick box from InDesign. And you can't set inner/outer bleeds in AI either.

Basically, it can all be done in AI, but it takes much more attention to detail in terms of production.

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  • Hey, @Scott Thanks for the reply. I'm honestly only looking to add a table of context from your list, It'll only be about 20 or so pages long. In Terms of the consistency, I had planned to create artboards attached together and create shapes etc over them all so it looks like one. I'm not too sure what you mean, in terms of output spread to pdf, isn't this the same as exporting the artboards to a PDF file?
    – Kris Clarke
    Dec 1, 2020 at 1:59
  • Usually, in Illustrator, I make the artboard the size of the largest bleed, I then have a trim/safe area bleed guideline and put the work inside that. Or are you referring to having a bleed for the printers? I usually tell them what size I made something to and what the bleed would be
    – Kris Clarke
    Dec 1, 2020 at 2:00
  • There are features in both Illustrator and Indesign to set bleed areas.. then when exporting to PDF, trim and bleed marks are added automatically. It's very difficult to understand how much you may or may not know in terms of production. It's all possible in Illustrator, but if you aren't solid in your production knowledge it can be a production challenge.
    – Scott
    Dec 1, 2020 at 3:38
  • I, personally, would never create a 20 page book with Illustrator - even if a client insisted on this, my price for such a project would balloon due to the increased complication. But, I'm also familiar with InDesign so there's no roadblock to using that application for me.
    – Scott
    Dec 1, 2020 at 3:52
  • well in terms of production, all I really know is bleed usually gets cut off and what's left-back is usually the trim + safe area. I usually design all around the page and put important info inside of the safe area. However, I will be looking to learn InDesign from a 2 hour video so I hope that would be enough to do what I wish to do
    – Kris Clarke
    Dec 1, 2020 at 19:39

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