Flyerstarter’s agency-quality fully customizable design templates will save you hours of time-consuming design layout and graphic production.

Online since 2003, Flyerstarter is the world's original marketplace for print design. Download high-resolution, print-ready flyer designs in the popular layered vector (.EPS) format from talented artists, modify to your specifications, and print in-house or send to a print shop.

So how do you get in on the action? Let’s examine the process of preparing a file for the site and how to get the most out of your work.

Design

First we need something to upload. Your source files could be a pre-existing design you made for a client or something you create specifically for the site. You can use anything you want as long as it fits into Flyerstarter’s size and color specs and you have legal ownership and/or right to distribute the content in template form. This is something you especially want to check if you find yourself wanting to use stock imagery in your design, as most stock agencies explicitly prohibit reselling images in template form. If you have some illustration or photography skills, this is where they’ll really come in handy. Images that contain human beings traditionally attract more interest than those that do not, so the ability to produce original imagery will give you a distinct advantage.

Keep in mind that if you do use an image that depicts a recognizable human face, you will need to include a valid model release with the flyer. It doesn’t matter if you have a crowd shot with 20 faces in it, you would still need a release for each person. Model releases are available at http://www.flyerstarter.com/documents/modelrelease.pdf. If you are a photographer or just tend to take a lot of pictures when you go out, it’s a great idea to print out a small stack of release forms and keep them in your camera bag. I shoot both model sessions and club events and I never leave home without my forms.

Back to flyer design. If you find that you want to use existing work, make sure you eliminate any logos and actual contact information and replace this with faux data of your own invention or “Lorem Ipsum” text. You generally want to “sterilize” the design and make it as general-purpose as possible, at least for the target market you are going for. Make web addresses generic, change numbers to “555” prefixes, etc. My method involves plugging in made-up info for the display copy and filler text for the smaller, body copy. It’s fun to come up with fake DJ and club names and it lends a little character to your design. Try to stay away from using the name “Flyerstarter” as it gets a little tiring on the eyes to see page after page of designs that say “Flyerstarter Event” or “DJ Flyerstarter.” We’re graphic designers and should be more creative than that anyway.

There are definitely certain types of templates that sell better than others. If you’re making club flyers, keep in mind that hip-hop/rap/top-40 reigns large in many areas so these themes tend to sell quickly. Make it as modern, sexy, cutting-edge as possible and you’ll have no problem moving some work.

In addition to traditional flyers, the site also provides a wide variety of standard products like business cards, restaurant menus, posters, and letterhead. If you upload one product, consider expanding the theme across multiple print pieces. For example, let’s say you have a business card design you want to upload. Why not modify the design to work on a letterhead and give the client the option of a total identity makeover on the fly? You could then do the same thing for brochures, flyers, even a poster.

Bleeds

As for the designs themselves, remember to add a .125” (9mm) bleed area around the edge of the design. Do this even if you don’t plan on bleeding any elements because the client might add or move artwork to the edge. It might be a good idea to use the Guides function in Illustrator to clearly section off this area. Guide-lining the bleed area is a good idea, but a better one is to place your lines about .25” (18mm) into the design to allow for breathing room between the active content and the cut edge of the paper.

Fonts

Try to use fonts that are available for free or that can be substituted easily. Using a high-end and unusual boutique font to create your display copy might provide a more aesthetically pleasing result, but it won’t do much good if your end user cannot re-create the same look and feel with something off a free font site or default machine font. Personally I tend to live in the middle of this and use fonts like Helvetica and Avant Garde and Century Gothic which the user might have, but if they do not they can easily use something like Verdana or Arial or some other neutral sans font. I have also started leaving a notes section well outside the artboard area that contains links to download the fonts I used or communicate some other bit of info to minimize customer support issues for the site.

EPS Format

For now we’re saving all files as EPS 7 or 8. Make sure all raster data is high resolution, 300 dpi, CMYK. EPS is a standard format recognizable and editable by a multitude of applications.

Upload

Getting your files on the site is an easy process.

Go to flyerstarter.com and log in to your account. From the drop-down menu at the top, hover over “Account” and select “Submissions.” A page will come up showing any previous flyers you have uploaded and their status. To the left of this is a “Submit Templates” button. Click it and it will take you right to the upload screen.

On this page you will see a list of guidelines for your files as well as a chart listing several common sizes for templates. Give the lists a quick scan and make sure your files are good to go. I’ve been on the site for three years and I still go over this and make a little mental checklist just to make sure I won’t have to upload a 50MB or more flyer twice.

If everything still looks good and you are ready to upload, scroll toward the bottom to find the submission forms. Choose the single-sided or double-sided form.

Enter up to 20 keywords that describe your piece. As it says on the page:

“When you enter your own keywords, they will show up on the product page under 'Artist's Tags.' These keywords will also go into strategic locations on your product page that will help search engines such as Google find them.

Keywording is extremely important to helping your art become marketable, as it is the number one way people will find your art. As the number of files in the Flyerstarter inventory grows, it becomes more like a search engine; often people don't have the patience to browse past the first few pages of search results.

Choosing 20 effective, descriptive keywords/keyphrases for each of your files will magnify the probability of them being found and purchased The words you choose should be an effective balance between a literal, objective description of the art, and words that people will be likely to use.”

When you are satisfied with your keywords, browse to your file(s) and click submit. When your design has finished uploading, you will see confirmation at the bottom of the upload box.