We were putting together another toolbox for our design community friends when we noticed that the Stumblers had gotten hold of the T-Shirt Designer’s Toolbox and had run wild with it. So we looked at the Adobe InDesign Toolbox we were compiling, and then at the 20,000 views on the t-shirt toolbox, then back to the new post, back to the 30,000 views on the t-shirt toolbox, and then…well this went on back and forth for a bit. After we saw that the t-shirt tools garnered 50,000 plus views, we knew we needed to step up the next post a bit.

So we returned to the proverbial toolshed and opened up the InDesign Toolbox, and what do you know, we found room for more! So we crammed every corner of the box full until we felt this follow-up was not only a worthy enough next chapter, but we also felt that we could call it The Ultimate Adobe InDesign Toolbox. And here it is, friends. We hope this resource full toolbox is useful for the InDesigners out there.

Tutorials

Lets start out by getting your learn on! Here are a handful of great tutorials for the InDesign crowd. Some you may know, some you may not. Some may teach you things you do not know. Some may not. I thought I had a point to this. Turns out, I do not. So…moving on.

• Layers Magazine InDesign Tutorials
• A Complete List of InDesign CS4 Video Tutorials
• Tutsbuzz InDesign Tutorials
• Answers to Reader Questions on InDesign – A great overview of InDesign with links to some of the sites quality InDesign articles.
• Step-by-Step Guide to Designing InDesign Templates
• Design Business Cards in Adobe InDesign
• Simple Steps to Create a Newsletter from Scratch in Adobe InDesign
• How to Create a Music Magazine Cover in InDesign
• Scroll magazine design – Not specifically an InDesign tutorial but still a damn fine tutorial when used along with InDesign.

Scripts and Plug-Ins

The Army wants you to be all that you can be. We hold less lofty goals here at Dead Wings. We just want your design projects to be the best they can be. Such as those you create in InDesign. So here are some handy scripts and plugins to give you all the edge you need.

• InDesign Secrets Plug-Ins and Scripts
• PlugIns World – PlugIns for InDesign
• Third-party plug-ins for InDesign from the official Adobe site
• Pattern Maker
• Style Flocker
• MultiDo
• Lightning Brain FrameReporter

Templates

Who doesn’t love a good template? We do, and we think that we are not alone in this. Here are several for InDesign that we thought you might want to add to your collection. Or, consequently, if you do not have a collection, these could get you started.

• The Grid System Templates for InDesign
• Free Templates from Stock Layouts
• InDesign Templates from Poster Garden
• InDesign Templates from WeBrand
• InDesign Layout Templates
• Print Ready Templates
• Free Templates from the Paper Millstore
• InDesign Templates for Chinese and Japanese Text

Free Fonts

Here are some good free fonts that we have found that we think are ideal for both body copy and headlines. Never hurts to have a few more fonts to choose from, and these we figure will fit good in the mix.

• Exljbris Font Foundry – These 9 fonts are the best free fonts we’ve found.
• Day Roman
• District Thin
• Geo Sans Light
• Portland
• Liberation Serif
• Oxford
• Grandesign Neue Serif
• Gentium
• Bienetresocial

Websites, Blogs and Podcasts… Oh My!

We knew the toolbox wouldn’t be complete without a couple of podcasts, a few blogs, and some websites tossed in to the mix. So we found some of the finest Adobe InDesign related stops on the web for you, and packed them in. And that will just about do ya!

• The Adobe InDesign Exchange – Pages of free templates, tutorials, scripts and plugins for InDesign.
• The InDesigner
• Tim Cole’s InDesign BackChannel
• InDesign Secrets
• Instant Indesign
• InDesign User Group
• InDesign Docs
• InDesign Magazine

Cheat Sheets

Now we here at Dead Wings do not condone cheating in any way, but since we forgot to mention that there may be a pop quiz, we thought one or two cheat sheets wouldn’t be out of order. Though if you get caught using them, we will deny ever having given them out!

• InDesign Cheat Sheet
• Shortcut Shindig – InDesign
• Noble Desktop Keyboard Shortcut Guides

The Pop Quiz

What tools would you add to the mix?

More from this Issue

• Charging for Content : A Look at the Costs
• 10 Free Impressionism Grunge Swirl Vectors
• Hand-Drawn Illustration Inspiration
• Inspired by Print (02/10)