Customized Adobe, Quark, and Apple Training: Locations and Fees

You can receive Anne-Marie's top-notch training, materials and free follow-up support regardless of your location: Chicago, the Midwest, or around the world.

Most clients in the Chicago area, the midwest and other cities in the U.S. opt for on-site training at their workplace (right at student's workstations, or gathered in a conference room); it's the most convenient for your staff and they learn right on their own computers, using their own files for practice. We take care of any preparation you might need for successful on-site sessions — trainer's laptop and projector, trial software, etc. — and are flexible enough to work around your schedule, requirements and special requests.

Other clients prefer reserving Seneca's Mac and PC classroom; or if there's just one or two students, coming into our own design studio in Chicago's north side for focused tutoring. And a growing number of clients opt for the convenience of live, web-based instruction in our on-line classroom because they get the same customized instruction from the trainer, but no one needs to travel anywhere.

On-site Training: Chicago Area

The majority of our training clients request that we conduct the training on-site, at their workplace. Since on-site training is scheduled in workflow-friendly half-day sessions, you and your staff can still get some work done before and after the sessions and be available for work-related deadlines and calls ... and of course you don't have to worry about travelling to a different location on training days.

More importantly, though, when training is conducted at your site, you're able to learn on your own computers, with your customary suite of utilities and plug-ins and your own preferences, often using copies of your working files for training exercises; all of which helps with long-term retention and immediate application of your new skills.

No training room? No problem. The fact is, very few of our clients have the luxury of a dedicated training room. If the group is small — say, one to four or five people — then your group can get trained right at their workstations or cubicles. If the group is larger, we often hold class in a conference room with our laptop and projector. Students still get hands-on time and one-on-one coaching at their workstations, even in a mostly lecture-based scenario. We make it work, and we have fun with it.

The fee for on-site training is blessedly budget-friendly. It's based on the number of students in each half-day session—1 student minimum—and not on the software program itself. Multiple topics/programs can be covered during a single session. The fee increases slightly as additional students are added to the session, with flat rates for groups of six or more, offering the most cost savings per student. We've done on-site, hands-on training for as many as 25 students at once.

If you're not sure how many sessions you'll need, see the Training FAQ sidebar further down on this page for some guidance, or contact Sherri Austin, Seneca's Training Coordinator, who can give you some friendly guidance based on years of experience. Remember, you can just sign up for one or two sessions and see how far you go, then schedule additional ones as necessary. We've taught InDesign to five designers in a single half-day session! (Just the few things they needed to know of course, not everything—and Anne-Marie is still out of breath.)

Session fee for local on-site training
(one session = one half-day, morning or afternoon)

• Our fees are highly competitive with any other training provider you might be considering, and can be as little as $95/student per half-day for a mid-size group. Please fill out the Request a Quote form for current pricing and a rough quote, thanks!

Freebies and Discounts

• All students receive 3 years of 24/7 follow-up support by phone or e-mail from Anne-Marie. Yes. 24/7. Three years.
• No charge for "auditing" students ('The boss might sit in for half an hour')
• No charges for local travel expenses (taxis, parking fees, etc.) are ever passed through to you. We count that as overhead.
• Contract for training package totaling > $5K: Free web-based follow-up session, scheduled at your convenience.

Request a Quote

On-site Training: Out-of-Town

Out-of-town on-site training is conducted in full-day sessions with a one day minimum, covering any software you need. We'll suggest our standard start and end times, but the schedule is really up to you. Otherwise, the same features described above for local on-site training applies to out-of-town training (takes place at student's workstations or in a training room, content can cover multiple programs, etc.).

Daily fee for out-of-town training (flat rate)

• As low as $1395 for one day; daily fee increases slightly (but cost per student decreases) with class size. Please fill out the Request a Quote form for pricing options for your group, thanks!
• After one-day minimum is met, 1/2-day rates are available (our clients love this)
• Plus minimal travel/lodging expenses (If you're within a 5-hour drive of Chicago, travel will just be a mileage fee)

Freebies and Discounts

• All students receive 3 years of 24/7 follow-up support by phone or e-mail from Anne-Marie. Yes. 24/7. Three years.
• No charge for "auditing" students ('The boss might sit in for half an hour')
• Contract for training package totaling > $5K: Free web-based follow-up session, scheduled at your convenience.

Request a Quote

Seneca Studio Training

We can train up to three people at a time at Seneca's studio on the north side of Chicago. Studio training is scheduled by the half-day session during normal business hours. Training on both Macintosh and Windows platforms is available.

Even if you just schedule one-half day of training, you still receive the usual three years of 24/7 follow-up support!

Training in Seneca's studio is also a great solution if you don't own the software yet, if you're coming in from out of town, or your own office has too many distractions for you to concentrate on training. If you're a freelancer or home-office worker looking for some highly customized training to upgrade your skills, this may be the option for you.

Session fee for Seneca Studio Training
(one session = one half-day, morning or afternoon)

• Our fees are highly competitive with any other training provider you might be considering. Please fill out the Request a Quote form for current pricing, thanks!

Freebies and Discounts

• All students receive 3 years of 24/7 follow-up support by phone or e-mail from Anne-Marie. Yes. 24/7. Three years.
• Contract for training package totaling > $5K: Free web-based follow-up session, scheduled at your convenience.

Coming in from out of town? Contact us for a map/directions to our location and a list of recommended hotels. Our studio is located approximately halfway between O'Hare airport and downtown Chicago, right off the expressway connecting the two.

Request a Quote

Web-based Training: Our Live, On-line Classroom

Gee, wouldn't it be great if we could magically teleport our trainer to inside your own computer? Good news, we can! Seneca has its own Adobe Connect "classroom" that our instructors use for live web-based training. (Connect is Adobe's virtual meeting product, similar to NetMeeting or WebEx but much more flexible and stable, in our experience.) Click the image at the right for a full-size screen shot in a new window.

Because it's so convenient, our web-based training sessions are the lowest-cost option for out-of-town of students, and have the lowest minimum number of training hours: One!

Here's how it works: A few minutes before the agreed-upon starting time, just use your favorite Mac or PC browser to go to the URL we provide, no software installation required, and log in as a guest. You can see live video of your teacher and their computer screen as they teach what you need to learn, hear them and ask any questions you like (via the phone conference number) for immediate feedback. The trainer can even view your own screen (if you want to allow that) to view your practice documents, and either one of you can control the other's screen.

Web-based training is as suitable for large groups as it is for individuals. Up to fifteen users can log in separately to the same session. They can all be at your location or scattered around the country. You can send us your actual files beforehand so we can use them during training.

For groups larger than 15 (and actually, even for smaller groups) some of our clients prefer to hold "class" in their own conference room, connecting with the phone conference via a speakerphone and projecting one logged-in computer's video to a large wall screen, while other staff members in the room observe or follow along on their own laptops, asking questions, discussing solutions, just like a "real" Seneca class.

If you're concerned about firewalls or connection speed, we'd be happy to quickly open the classroom and have you log in to test it, before you decide to do it. Just give us a call and we can set up a test while we're on the phone. (But rest assured, we've yet to encounter a problem with it. Our training references include web-based training clients you can contact.)

Web-based training is scheduled by the hour or half-day, with a 30-minute minimum. If you need more than a single half-day, we recommend that you spread out multiple sessions over a period of days or weeks, otherwise your ears will fall off. ;-)

Hourly or session fee for web-based training
(one session = one half-day, morning or afternoon)

• Our fees are highly competitive with any other training provider you might be considering, and can be as little as $35/student per half-day for a mid-size group. Please fill out the Request a Quote form for current pricing, thanks!

Freebies and Discounts

• All students that attend for at least one hour receive 3 years of 24/7 follow-up support by phone or e-mail from Anne-Marie. Yes. 24/7. Three years.
• No charge for "auditing" students ('The boss might sit in for half an hour').
• Contract for training package totaling > $5K: Free web-based follow-up session, scheduled at your convenience.

Request a Quote

Classroom Training for Your Group

A suite of late-model Macs and PCs loaded with the latest design software, a screen projector for the teacher, and thou. Each student gets their own workstation (up to 10 in a class), their own user account, and plenty of room to stretch out. Seneca uses one of four different classroom locations in Chicago and the suburbs, depending on platform and class size. All have convenient parking and the ones in the city have easy access to public transportation.

We can also arrange for classroom training near your location throughout the US. Please contact us for details.

Classroom training is customized just as on-site training is. We'll consult with you beforehand regarding your particular needs, student ability level and the types of projects you need to learn how to do; and adjust the content and hands-on work for an optimal fit. We can load any actual project files of yours (to use for hands-on exercises) on the classroom servers beforehand, or you're welcome to bring them with you on a CD.

Classroom training is scheduled in full-day sessions, including morning and afternoon breaks and a one-hour lunch break. Some of our favorite classrooms provide free coffee, soft drinks and snacks throughout the day, the others offer convenient lounges with vending machines. Start/end times can be adjusted to best fit your schedule.

Daily Fee for Seneca Classroom Training

• Our fees are highly competitive with any other training provider you might be considering; it's our usual on-site training fee plus the classroom rental (we've negotiated budget-friendly rates). Please fill out the Request a Quote form for current pricing, thanks!

Freebies and Discounts

• All students receive 3 years of 24/7 follow-up support by phone or e-mail from Anne-Marie. Yes. 24/7. Three years.
• No charge for "auditing" students ('The boss might drop in for half an hour')
• Free parking in most locations
• Free coffee, soft drinks and snacks in most locations
• Contract for training package totaling > $5K: Free web-based follow-up session, scheduled at your convenience.

Request a Quote | [top]

Sherri Austin, our Training Coordinator, is "the goddess of the schedule" and will assist you in setting everything up. And she's an incredibly nice person, too! She can answer all your questions about our training services, fees, references, date availabilty and more.

The best way to get started is to send in the Request a Quote form. Sherri will use the information you enter there to e-mail you a rough quote and lots of info, usually within a day or less. You can always call us at our office, too (312-946-1100). What happens after that is detailed below.

Half-Day Sessions
While most clients opt for full days of training (e.g., InDesign is usually a two-day class), we're happy to set up half-days as well. You decide when to schedule the sessions, whatever's most convenient for your business, and we will accomodate. Two things you should know: 1) Full day training fees are somewhat less costly than two separate half-day sessions; and 2) Out of town clients can tack on a half-day of training only after at least one full day of training is completed.

How Much Training?
The number of training days (or half-days) you'll need depends on the number of students, the level they're at, and what they want to learn.

As a general example, five designers moving from QuarkXPress to InDesign will need two days of ID training, while a lone freelancer will only need one or one-and-a-half days.

Keep in mind that with our targeted instruction style, sessions are fairly intense; so we can cover a lot more ground — that's immediately applicable to your projects — than in traditional training venues.

Based on what you enter in the Request a Quote form, we'll recommend how many sessions will be needed. You're not required to follow our recommendations; you can just book one session to see how it goes, for example; then schedule additional ones if you like. In this way you can fit your training to your budget.

How far in advance?
We prefer at least two week's advance notice to schedule your training sessions. If necessary, "emergency" sessions can be scheduled with even less notice. Just call!

OK, I submitted the Request a Quote form, now what?
After we receive it, we'll e-mail you or call you within one business day, (usually) with a rough quote based on what you describe. If you can't wait that long, or if you haven't received anything after a day or two (happens sometimes) just call us at 312-946-1100 to cut to the chase.

After you receive the rough quote, if it looks like it's in the ballpark, give us a call ore e-mail reply to firm up details — number of students, length of training, topics you want covered, and (optionally) sending us examples of what you do so the trainer can customize your session to the nth degree— and to discuss dates and times. If scheduling might be a problem, we're happy to "pencil in" your desired dates so we don't book them for someone else while you're deciding.

As soon as you're satisfied and give us the go-ahead, we'll e-mail you a Training Confirmation (a PDF) recapping the details and fee. Sign it and fax it back, and your training is booked!

We'll keep in contact with you as your training dates approach with any last-minute info or to answer your questions.

What if we need to reschedule?
Last-minute deadline surprises are part and parcel of the design business. Local clients can usually reschedule with no penalty, out-of-town clients might need to reimburse travel expenses already incurred. Details are in the Training Confirmation you'll receive. While we reserve the right to do so, Seneca has never billed a client for having to reschedule or even cancel a training session, not once. We understand.

Do you follow up?
After training is completed, we'll follow up via phone and/or e-mail to make sure you're satisfied, and remind you about our 3-year, 24/7 follow-up support for every student.

Go to Request a Quote form

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