Design a Business Report Cover

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Create a Three-Dimensional Building

Let's set up our document first. The document is 600px wide by 800px high. Create a large light gray rectangle that fills most of the document. See image below for example.

Now go to Effect > 3D > Extrude & Bevel. Use the settings in the image below.

Our outcome is very close to what we want. Go to Object > Expand Appearance. This will convert the live 3D effect into vector shapes that we can edit. Then we grab the Direct Selection Tool (A) and pull some corners at the bottom in until we have straight angles. This will work better in our illustration because we are going to have multiple buildings next to each other.

Place Our Bottom Text Box

Create an orange gradient rectangle that goes from light orange to dark orange. Make sure it extends well passed the width of the document. Then grab the Rotate Tool (R) and rotate the rectangle until it lines up with the angle of the shaded part of the building. Move the rectangle down to the bottom and make any adjustments to the width and height necessary.

Place Our Bottom Text

Grab the Type Tool (T) and insert the text "BUSINESS" with the sizes and settings in the image below. Also, insert the text "INDUSTRY" at 40pt.

Use the Rotate Tool (T) and rotate the text so that it follows the top edge of the text box.

Make Some Additions to our Main Building

Copy our main building to create a smaller tower on top of the first. Shrink it down and place it behind the first tower. Do this one more time until you get results that match the image below. Then give our building some gradients to separate the different towers and to give it more depth. Keep it in the same gray color range though.

Add Our Top Text Box

Create a Rectangle the same gradient color as the dark side of our building. Place it up top. Then copy it and place that copy in back. Move it down and then give it a darker shad of gray. Then insert the text "ANOTHER REPORT" at 24pt.

Multiply Our Building

Copy our building multiple times and resize each one until you get a layout similar to the below. Don't be concerned with maintaining constraints. I made some of them taller, shorter, thiner, and fatter than the original building.

Create an Arrowhead

First we create a rectangle. Then we grab the Shear Tool and while holding down the Shift Key drag the top left hand corner of the rectangle to the left. Then select the first half of the arrow and go to Object > Transform > Reflect and choose Vertical. Then hit OK. Lastly match up the two halves of the arrowhead.

Place Multiple Arrowheads in the Text Boxes

First we create a rectangle. Then we grab the Shear Tool and while holding down the Shift Key drag the top left hand corner of the rectangle to the left. Then select the first half of the arrow and go to Object > Transform > Reflect and choose Vertical. Then hit OK. Lastly match up the two halves of the arrowhead.

Add Action Lines Across Our Buildings

Create a set of Lines that are equally spaced apart, but have varying line lengths. Also, make sure the lines stretch a bit paste the document boundaries and they they have a gradient that matches our bottom text box. See left image below. Then select all the lines and rotate them all together. Get the lines to match up with our angles. See center image below. Then cut lines and paste them behind and in front of different buildings until you like the effect. The right image shows how this adds more interest to the layout.

Add Arrowheads to our Action Lines

Copy our Arrowhead from our bottom text box. Then resize our lines and add arrowheads to them. Feel free to move the lines around, shorten them, or even delete some. Work with it until you get a composition your happy with.

Add a Gradient Background and Some Texture

First we create a light gray linear gradient background. Its kind of hard to see in the image below left, but it is faintly there in the background. Make sure to set the Angle at 90 and go from light gray to white. When we add texture to our background this gradient will work with it. Adding some texture will give a tactile feel to this structured design. Unless its going to be printed on something textured then its worthwhile to explore adding texture. I used a stock texture from istockphoto: Grunge Emo Paper. First I added it above the background gradient we just created. I set the Transparency to Hard Light at 30 percent. To finish off adding our texture we place the same texture over our entire document and set it to Soft Light.

Add Some Subtle Effects to Our Text

Select the "ANOTHER REPORT" text and accompanying arrows and Click the Add to shape area button in the Pathfinder Palette. This combines our text and arrows as one image for us to apply effects to.

Then apply a Gradient and an Overlay to the text.

To Finish off our design apply similar techniques to the "BUSINESS INDUSTRY" text and accompanying arrows. Only use a white to brown gradient and set the Transparency to Screen.

Conclusion

This design is a simple classic solution that's relatively easy and quick to create. Adding texture to your vector images can be done right inside of illustrator and helps to soften the strong lines of this vector graphics. Try adding some texture to your next vector graphic.