Club/Event Flyers

Here's the deal. I've been asked to design a club flyer for a carshow event. I've noticed that many of these people go with gang-run printers for cheap prices and the flyers tend to have alot of effects on them.

My question is this: Is there a certain way to design them, as far as the background the effects and how the text should go? When I say "text" I mean the main information that the reader should actually see, not the cool text of the title or anything like that, I'm sure that goes incorporated into the flyer somehow.

But I'm looking at more of a set up for the layout. Are there any rules? Have any of you ever designed a flyer like this.

One more thing, I was looking at some flyers and came across this one:
http://www.hotimportnights.com/flyers_show.asp?id=87

Does anyone know how they get that effect in there where the green bursts of light come out next to the car and behind the girl's shoulder? I've always wondered if that's just done with a brush or what.

Any info is greatly appreciated. One thing I do know is to keep everything at 300dpi, so although this is my first, I was just wondering what I needed to know about putting one together. Thanks for your time and help.

Cheers!

I think good design is good design, like anything else you figure out what needs to be communicated and then find the best way to communicate that. The technical side really isnt too hard, i'd do your bg graphics and text effects in photoshop (at 300dpi with a 1/8" bleed)then lay in all your smaller/detail text in illustrator.

For the effect i think you could just create the lines that follow the path past the car and girl, copy the layer then gaussian blur and play with some layer transfer modes.

chris

Chris,

Thanks for your reply. I figure good design is good as well. I have the setup ready to go as far as edges for bleed go, so it's good to go, and I have the pics ready to go as well. But most of these flyers seem a way to throw off the text to really be read. I'll look into doing smaller text in Illustrator as well and just put up the graphics in Photoshop at 300dpi.

In regards to the effect, I'm using a different car, so I'm not too clear on what you meant by "just create the lines that follow the path past the car and girl".

I figured I'd have to use a blur and maybe set some layers to screen or overlay along with a gaussian blur, but my question is more about the control over how they make those lines go and curve and flare off at the tip.

Thanks again for your reply, any help is appreciated.

Cheers!

Ah, gotcha. the pen tool is probably your best bet or even the magnetic lasso if you're feeling lucky. the pen tool will let you follow that curve pretty closely with the control you want though i think. you might play with some 3d elements as well to get that rave flyer sort of vibe.

chris

Okay, I'll try to use the pen tool and see what's up. We'll see if I can get the look I need on that effect.