|
******************************
*** DesignGeek (tm) ***
******************************
Tips and techniques for the digital designer
In this issue:
-- What I Did on my DesignGeek Vacation
Issue 72, 12/31/08
Written by Anne-Marie "HerGeekness" Concepcion
... for her clients, colleagues, random contacts and interested subscribers
==========================
What I Did on My DesignGeek Vacation
==========================
Oh yes, Virginia, DesignGeek is back from hiatus ... woo-hoo!
You know I run a design and training business, right? (Check the ad at the bottom of the issue.) Well on top of that, I took on an overwhelming number of additional projects in the last half of 2008 that are just now winding down. And I simply found it impossible to get an issue out. Day after guilt-wracked day, the steady stream of new DesignGeek subscriptions were heartening, as were the occasional e-mails from concerned long-time subscribers ("Could you please check that my e-mail address isn't bouncing? I haven't received an issue in a while.")
As self-imposed deadlines of "next month for sure" came and went, I finally settled on a drop-dead deadline that *for sure* DesignGeek would get back in the game before the year was out. Well if you look at the date of this thing, you'll know why I'm up at 6:00 a.m. on a frigid Wednesday morning, madly typing away on my computer... LOL.
Here's a selection of some of the most interesting projects I've been working on, with links I think you'll find useful. More details, when warranted, will probably be shared in future issues.
-----
Adobe Extravaganza
-----
I had fun working on the Adobe CS4 rollout, but it did take over basically every aspect of my working life. They say the part of an iceberg that's visible above the waterline is only about 10% of its truly massive size. And that's how it is, I learned, when a major software company (or I guess any company) rolls out a new version of its flagship product.
As end users, we only see the 10% that are the ads, reviews, and new web pages when the new version comes out. But in the spring of 2008, Adobe hired me and a few hundred others as a freelancer worker bees, enlisted to help construct the the rest of the iceberg hidden below the surface. White papers, sample files, documentation, sales presentation outlines, reviewer's guides, Classroom in a Books, ACE exams, all sorts of projects need to be created well before the release of the software. And with CS4, that meant all these things needed to be created for each of the 13+ individual programs that make up the Creative Suite.
My main focus was on InDesign and InCopy (the latter of which is still not a part of the Creative Suite, even though it carries the "CSx" moniker). I wrote the reviewer's guides for each, which entailed coming up with hands-on exercises that showed off their new features, and making sure they worked with the sample files that another company (another worker bee company) created. Other hired hands wrote the guides for all the other programs.
The reviewer's guides and sample files aren't available for the general public. They're not on the main website, you have to be on Adobe's list of press contacts to get your hands on them. But, as in past rollouts, I'm sure that some of their content will be modified and appear as downloadable whitepapers or tutorials for end users. I'll let you know when they're available.
In the meantime, if you want to learn more about what CS4 offers print designers, Adobe is doing some great live eSeminars in January and February of 2009, which are free, of course.
Adobe CS4 eSeminars for designers:
http://tinyurl.com/cs4eseminars
Also, MogoMedia (the good folks behind the Creative Suite Conference and the InDesign Conference, among others), were tapped by Adobe to help them do a CS4 road show around the country. The one-day conference is only $49.00, and includes a giveaway of the CS4 Design Premium package along with other "fabulous prizes."
Adobe CS4 Launch Tour "Shortcut to Brilliant"
http://www.mogo-media.com/seminars/the-adobe-cs4-launch-tour/
|| top ||
------
New Lynda.com Videos
-----
Okay, so since I had spent so much time learning the ins and outs of InDesign CS4 and InCopy CS4, why not do some new tutorial videos for lynda.com? I had nothing but time, right? So I did two titles, and each one took up about a solid month of my time (prepping sample files, outlines, testing, and then traveling to Lynda.com in Ventura, California to do the actual recording). But I'm really happy with how they came out.
As usual, a few of the lessons in each title can be viewed online for free. If you want to see all of them, you just need to pay as little as $25.00 (for a one-month on-line subscription); or $89 - $149 (for each title's DVD and sample files).
InDesign CS4 New Features
http://movielibrary.lynda.com/html/modPage.asp?ID=650
Over forty video tutorial lessons covering every new feature of InDesign CS4 in depth. For example, there are five videos on the Conditional Text feature alone, and I tried to include undocumented tips and cool techniques with each lesson. Like the other New Features videos at lynda.com, these can only be viewed on-line, the company doesn't make them available as DVDs you can buy. Bummer.
InCopy CS4 and InDesign CS4 Workflow Essential Training
http://movielibrary.lynda.com/html/modPage.asp?ID=651
An introduction to InCopy and a comprehensive, in-depth guide to getting InDesign and InCopy to work together smoothly. If you're already using InCopy and InDesign, at least check out the What's New in InCopy CS4 lesson, which is one of the free ones you can view online.
|| top ||
-----
Rogers Printing Seminars
-----
While all the above was happening, I thought, hey, I'm not busy enough -- let's agree to do a bunch of all-day seminars for the design and pre-press clients at Rogers Printing up in Grand Rapids, Michigan.
They have a neat thing going on there -- Rogers charges their designer/clients (actually, the designer's employer) a reasonable amount to attend the seminar, but the full fee can be deducted from their next print job. I thought that was pretty clever!
In June I presented "Mastering InDesign," in October it was "I Didn't Know Acrobat Could Do That!" and in December I pulled together a soup-to-nuts seminar called "The Sweet Suite" (automating production among all the programs -- XML, variables, actions, scripts, etc.). If you'd like me to provide your company with the same seminar, let me know ... I've got all the files and I'm good to go! Heh. Or, if you'd like to be notified of upcoming seminars at Rogers Printing, let my client, the wonderful Marylou Peterman, know. A link to her email is on this web page:
Rogers Printing Seminars
http://www.rogersprinting.net/educationalseminars.htm
A bonus for me, and for all the attendees (many of whom came to each one of these ... I think I've developed a fan club in Grand Rapids) was that Rogers Printing holds the seminars in a beautiful room at a breathtaking venue, the Frederik Meijer Gardens & Sculpture Park. We all enjoyed how the scenery changed as each seminar was held in a different season, and then on top of that you have these amazing sculptures scattered throughout the grounds. If you're ever in the area, you have to go see this place.
Frederik Meijer Sculpture Gardens
http://www.meijergardens.org/
I'll never forget driving into the entrance of the park that early June morning, and at the front of the gardens, facing the road, was a towering (at least 30 feet tall) sculpture of a an empty man. It was an incomplete shell, made up of huge letters of the alphabet welded together. I thought, how appropriate for an graphic design seminar! I found a picture of the sculpture here (taken elsewhere), as seen from the back; and another one from inside it, looking out:
La Grande Nomad (by Spain's Jaume Plensa)
http://tinyurl.com/grandenomad
http://tinyurl.com/grandenomad-inside
What do you think ... Helvetica?
I later learned Sr. Plensa was the designer of the Crown Fountain, right here in Chicago's Millennium Park:
http://www.pbase.com/tanakak/crown
But ... I digress. Let's continue.
|| top ||
-----
CreativePro.com "HerGeekness" Column
-----
You might recall that early this year I started a monthly column on creativepro.com called "HerGeekness Says." I've struggled to maintain that monthly committment, and succeeded ... more or less. Okay, less. Like DesignGeek, it was an occasional unfortunate victim of my overbooked schedule.
Still, I was able to post some quite useful articles, I think; covering Acrobat, Photoshop, InDesign, Illustrator, video, print, and more. You can access links to them all on my author's page on their site:
My CreativePro.com articles
http://tinyurl.com/cpro-amc
(Can you tell I'm addicted to tinyurl.com's recent ability to customize URLs? Love it.)
Here's something cool: The editor and her staff recently went through all the articles posted to the site in 2008 to discover the top ten ... the ten stories that had the most page views.
And guess what, I won! ;-) And wouldn't you know, it was the article I wrote on Microsoft Word that took the prize. LOL.
Converting Custom Letterhead to Word Templates
http://tinyurl.com/wordconvert
CreativePro.com's feature about the 2008 Top Ten Stories, with links to each one, appears here:
http://tinyurl.com/top10pt2
And a grateful tip-o-the-hat to Terri Stone, creativepro.com editor in chief (and ditto for InDesign Magazine), the world's gift to authors. Thanks, Terri!
|| top ||
-----
InDesignSecrets.com
-----
This fun little blog that David Blatner and I started as a sideline venture a couple years ago has turned into a monster, but in a very good way. We're getting an incredible number of visits (over 10,000 unique visits a day), and have had to upgrade our server twice in rapid succession this summer because we went over bandwidth. The companion podcast is now up to episode 93 ... I'm amazed that we're still able to find Obscure InDesign Features of the Week-eek-eek (echo effect) to close out each episode. Turns out that you can always find an obscure feature in a panel menu!
In addition to writing blog posts and publishing podcasts, this year we went through a major redesign upgrade, added a better search engine, added more InDesign guru contributors, brought on more advertisers and sponsors, created our third InDesign Keyboard Shortcuts poster (for CS4), and as I mentioned in a DesignGeek earlier this year, we started a sister site that I run, InCopySecrets.com.
It exhausts me just to write about it! LOL
I haven't been able to post as many blog articles as I'd like to recently (surprise), but you can see a list of them here:
http://indesignsecrets.com/author/annemarie
The best part of the InDesignSecrets.com and InCopySecrets.com blog is that they're such a perfect fit for everything else I do. For example, while training a publisher a few weeks ago on how to use InMath, the math typesetting plug-in for InDesign and InCopy, it was difficult to decipher all the Hidden Characters (aka Show Invisibles) that the plug-in generates. I made a crib sheet for myself, and then after the training, turned the crib sheet into the Ultimate Guide to Special/Hidden Characters in Adobe InDesign; a five-page magnum opus PDF.
I thought, this will be perfect for Seneca's InDesign training clients ... and then I thought, this would also make a perfect blog post!
You can read about the Guide to Special Characters PDF, see a preview of it, and download it here:
http://indesignsecrets.com/free-guide-to-indesign-special-characters.php
The other best part of writing a blog is the immediate feedback you get after posting. Unlike most other blogs, we don't require people to register or even enter some arcane gibberish (called a "Capcha") in order to comment. You can just jump right in, and blam, it's published. Some of the comments from that Special Characters posting were "This is fantastic!" and "Thank you Anne-Marie!" and "You forgot Non-joiner!" (heh ... I added that and posted a new version) and "I wish I had this last week!" Very gratifying.
How I wish I could have that feedback for DesignGeek. Well, I'm burying this deep in the issue, but I aim to have DesignGeek.com -- the blog -- up and running in the next few weeks. Ssssshhhh ... that news is only for the true DesignGeek fans who actually read the entire issue. ;-) Of course, when it's live, I'll announce it in a top story in the e-zine. (Yes, of course the e-zine will continue.)
|| top ||
-----
Web-based Training and Seminars
-----
The training side of Seneca Design & Training has been as busy as ever, even in the midst of all these projects. It's only due to the efforts of Sherri "Ms. Wonderful" Austin, Seneca's Training Coordinator, and our top-flight crew of Associate Geek trainers, that we've been able to keep up; and I've been able to complete at least some of the projects I've been talking about.
You might imagine that in this economy, bringing a trainer on-site is not the top priority, especially if you have to fly them in. (Half of our training engagements are outside of Chicago and require travel and hotel stays.)
While that kind of training is still going on, another type of training has steadily increased for us: Web-based training using our Connect classroom. (In fact, that InMath training I mentioned above was a three-hour web-based training -- me in Chicago, eight students in Florida.) It's still a custom training class but there's no travel or lodging cost involved, the schedule is very flexible, and as a rule the total training cost is less.
It's extremely convenient and *almost* as good as live, since with an Internet connection and a browser you can see my screen, and I can see any student's too, if necessary. Clients send us their sample files beforehand so we can use those during the web session, just as we do when we're on-site. Everyone still gets a handout or course materials. And of course we still offer the same three years of 24/7 follow-up support for all our training students.
But making sure these online sessions are successful takes some expense and prep work. So, this summer we upgraded our Connect account to a full-bore Enterprise version to handle more students at once. (I did an InCopy/InDesign online class for 25 people in August, just in time!). I had AT&T out here to install the fastest, most stable Internet connection possible, and upgraded our router and internal Ethernet network. Most of our associate trainers have gone through our Connect training, too, so when someone needs Dreamweaver/CSS training -- not my forte -- we're able to accommodate.
David and I also got a Connect account for InDesignSecrets.com because we're doing one-hour public seminars -- some free, some for a low fee. So far we did two in 2008 (yes, more projects), and are planning on doing many more in 2009. I'm sure Seneca will be doing much more with our Connect account (in addition to custom training) in 2009 too; and of course, DesignGeek is where I'll be posting the news.
It's better for the environment, it's better for the budget, it's actually a lot of fun ... what's not to love?
If you want to learn more about our web-based training and get a rough price quote, just e-mail Sherri at sherri@senecadesign.com, or of course you can always contact me directly ... Sherri's the keeper of the schedule and fees, though! We also have an announcement list for the public online seminars Seneca will be doing, just enter your e-mail address here:
http://senecadesign.com/cgi-bin/dada/mail.cgi/list/dgwebinars
To get on the notification list for InDesignSecrets.com seminars, subscribe to our mailing list:
http://indesignsecrets.com/lists/?p=subscribe&id=1
|| top ||
*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^**^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*
MASTER THE LATEST DESIGN APPS WITH HERGEEKNESS!
Do you like what you read in DesignGeek? Find anything useful? Bring me or any of my hand-picked Associate Geeks in for a session or two of hands-on training for your workgroup; here in Chicago or any other city near an airport, and you can have this level of expertise all to yourself. All training comes with three years of 24/7 follow-up support for each student by phone or e-mail.
To learn more, or hear what other clients have to say, contact us or fill out the no-obligation "Request a Training Quote' form on Seneca's site:
http://www.senecadesign.com/training/request.html
Recent training clients in Chicago and throughout the U.S. and Canada include the American Bar Association (InCopy/InDesign); Duff & Phelps Investments (Illustrator, InDesign); Thompson Publishing (InCopy/InDesign); Malone Assoc. (QuarkXPress); Re/Max (Dreamweaver); S&C Electric (InDesign); Baugh & Co. (Photoshop); Basin Electric Power Cooperative (InDesign); PricewaterhouseCoopers (InCopy/InDesign); Advanstar (Dreamweaver); Scranton-Gillette (InCopy/InDesign); University of North Carolina/Chapel Hill (InCopy/InDesign).
*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^**^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*
|| top ||
--------------------------------
DesignGeek (tm) is a free monthly publication written by Anne-Marie "HerGeekness" Concepcion, a cross-media designer and authorized Adobe and Quark training provider. She owns Seneca Design & Training, Inc. in Chicago, Illinois (http://www.senecadesign.com).
To subscribe to DesignGeek or read archived issues, go to its home on Seneca's site:
http://www.senecadesign.com/designgeek/
(To unsubscribe, follow the link at the bottom of this page.)
Can't wait for the next issue of DesignGeek?
Read Anne-Marie's monthly "HerGeekness Says" column at CreativePro.com:
http://tinyurl.com/cpro-amc
And check out the tips she posts about Adobe InDesign and the InDesign/InCopy workflow:
http://indesignsecrets.com (blog and podcast co-hosted with David Blatner)
http://incopysecrets.com (with its own free e-zine, InCopyFlow)
Contact Seneca by phone at 312-946-1100 or e-mail at info@senecadesign.com
Copyright 2008 by Seneca Design & Training, Inc.
Please forward without cutting. Please contact Seneca for reprint permissions. We don't guarantee accuracy of articles. Company or product names mentioned in DesignGeek may be registered trademarks, we use the names in an editorial fashion with no intention of infringement.
--------------------------------
If you had received this by e-mail instead of reading it on my web site, your unsubscribe link would appear right here.
|
