Business Coupon Design

1. Draw a rounded rectangle with the Rounded Rectangle tool. Give it a white fill and 3pt black stroke with a dashed line.

2. Copy this object by pressing Ctrl+C, then press Ctrl+F to paste a copy directly on top of the original object. Lock the original object by clicking the square shown below in the Layers window. Locking the object will prevent you from selecting or modifying it.

3. Draw a rectangle with the Rectangle tool to cover approximately the top 1/3 of the coupon. Double click the fill and change the color code in the bottom right corner from ffffff to e6a2a2. Remove the stroke as shown below:

4. Select the copied rounded rectangle and the rectangle by dragging a selection around the 2 objects with the Selection tool (black pointer).

5. Bring up the Pathfinder window (Window > Pathfinder), and click the 'Intersect shape areas' button, then the 'Expand' button, to create the shape below:

6. Select the pink shape (click it with the Selection tool), and four corner handles will appear. Grab the top right corner, hold Shift+Alt, then drag it inward just enough so it lines up with the dashes. Holding these keys will prevent you from distorting the proportions of the shape or aligning it wrong.

7. Open the Symbols window (Window > Symbols) and open the 'Tiki' library.

8. Drag the retro looking TV symbol on to your image.

9. Select the Symbol Stainer tool, then a dark red fill (I used B20909), and click the TV symbol twice to give it a reddish tone.

10. Select the Star tool (one of the shape tools) and click on your image to bring up a dialog box. Enter the values shown to make a badge shape. I came up with the values by experimenting a little. If the values don't make sense, try drawing a few more stars with different values to see how the star changes.

11. Add some text for the headline, my font is Impact 108pt. Use the same dark red fill as the star. Center it, then move it down 1px and right 1px.

12. Duplicate the text like you did before (Ctrl+C, Ctrl+F), fill the new text with black, and move it up 2px and left 2px, to create a simple drop shadow effect.

13. Add more text with the same font. Here are the font sizes for each line:

-Roundscreen: 48pt
-TVs: 72pt
-TV Town: 24pt
-from: 24pt
-$99: 60pt

14. Finally, add some text for an address and a "Valid Until" message. I used Arial 14pt here since it is more legible at smaller sizes. And you have a simple but eye-catching coupon.