Side decor for headers

[Beemo8bit]

Hello, I work with roleplaying game books, which often have complex and unusual requirements etc. I have no idea how to accomplish this header concept (photo attached). There is a decorative line with small circles to either side of the header. You can see that the header probably has side borders, but the decorative line doesn't show up behind the text/inside the borders. This is clearly dynamic, as there are 2 headers of different widths in the photo which are clearly using the same side rule image. An extra wrinkle is that the text should be able flow into more than one line, if used in a single column. Any ideas how to do this sort of thing - this particular effect, or any other tricks to make headers more visually interesting?

[Barb Binder · Accepted solution]

Something like this might work:

• I drew the line in Illustrator and placed it. (You could also draw it in InDesign and group the lines and circles.) I prefer Illustrator because if you edit the line later, InDesign updates all occurences and you seem to use it quite a bit.)
• I typed the heading, adding the pipe character on either side, and spacing it from the text with em spaces.
• I added a custom underline (thick, white and set directly behind the text to block what is underneath it) and saved the formatting as a paragrpah style so that I can use it again. 
• Used the Vertical alignment button to center the content over the line.

~Barb

[Scott Falkner]

I would do the line in InDesign and make it an Object Style. That way you can update all occurences by editing the Style.

But the graphic in the image provided is not the same for each subject. It looks like each is unique. I would make them in Illustrator. I would only make one for each heading, then use Flip Horizontal in the Colton panel to reflect the duplication on the other side of the heading. I would make each one actual size so I don't ever scal in InDesign, so I can keep stroke weights consistent.

[Beemo8bit]

Thanks all. (Just to clarify, the work in the photo isn't mine, just an example). So the real question here is how to make this sort of thing an automatic feature of every instance of the header paragraph style. If I have 80 of these headers in a 300 page book, for example, placing a graphic behind each one, or manually anchoring each one isn't practical, especially if the layout changes....

[BobLevine · Accepted solution]

If you don't need anything fancy, you could still use Barb's method but instead of placing the line, you could add a paragraph rule that's the width of the column. Play around with the offsets to get it centered.

This old, but still relevant video, might give you some ideas: theindesigner.com/podcasts/tid49_theindesigner_49.mp4

[Beemo8bit]

Thanks, I'll check the video. I tried the method you suggested a while ago with shading, which didn't work but adding a bottom rule and moving it up, obscures the line. Hooray, at least that's a useful addition to the tool kit!!!

[Beemo8bit · Accepted solution]

As an addition to our success, I've just found out you can create custom stroke types and load them in the strokes panel. So in my example of the line with small circles, I could do a similar idea maybe, load it as a stroke, and use rule above/below to implement it. Fantastic!