Adding a Healthy Glow

There aren’t many things in life that don’t look better with a little healthy glow added to them. As I work on designs for my magazine, I have found adding an outer glow to objects often gives them a modern, classy look – almost as though they are back lit.

There are ways to provide an outer glow to an object through Adobe Illustrator, but here’s a great little shortcut to use within Adobe InDesign, so you don’t have to switch back and forth between programs.

1. Select the object you would like to apply a glow to.
2. Under the Object menu, select “Drop Shadow” [OPTION+COMMAND+M]
3. Adjust the settings until you find a look you like.
1. “Normal” mode seems to work best.
2. The higher the Opacity, the brighter the glow. 
3. Setting the X & Y Offset to 0 will provide an even glow around the object, but sometimes skewing the “shadow” just slightly makes a nicer look.
4. Start with a blur around .25 in and adjust from there.
5. A white, or [Paper] setting often looks best, but depending on the color of your background, another bright color might work well too.

In the sample pictured below, you can see the InPark logo with and without the glow, as well as the settings used to achieve that look.

The process is simple, but the results are satisfying, and the reviews I've received on the new look are, well…glowing!