Overlays

If you are annotating a screenshot or comp once and don’t anticipate any iteration or change in your document or artwork, then try our library of overlay callouts.

Why Overlays?

Overlays are:

• Quick to apply
• Visually attractive and simple
• Make your pictures and annotations in closest proximity
• Draw direction attention to an area of interest
• Useful for focusing a few, salient points

Why NOT Overlays?

Be careful with your use of overlays, however. They may look good, but are not appropriate for heavier annotation or iterative design work. Some drawbacks of overlays include:

• Shapes and text always obscure artwork, even if it’s not the artwork of interest
• Shapes can be confused with artwork
• Shapes with text don’t scale with increased detail
• Shape orientation often lacks axis and / or discernible path of interpretation or ordering

Where

» Download

Note that by downloading this library, you agree to our Terms of Use. The overlays library will be added to the next EightShapes Unify release.

How

Open a library as a panel in your workspace via File > Open or double clicking the file in Windows Explorer or Mac OSX Finder. Once open, drag an item from the panel onto your deliverable page.
Manipulate overlay tails using the direct selection tool. Select the anchor point at the tail’s tip, and orient the tail to point at the area of interest.