Meeting Summary: Improve Your Production and Bottom Line

Thu, Mar 11th, 2010 at 6:00 PM

Schoolcraft College

Event Details

The night of March 11 brought warm weather, yummy pizza and cookies, and a fantastic agenda at Schoolcraft College.

Paul Grant started off the night with a lively and very animated presentation of GridIron Flow—the revolutionary visual workflow suite that automatically tracks file relationships and visually shows you the anatomy of your projects. Paul provided insight on how you can easily version content, maintain a clear understanding of file dependencies and relationships, and track the time you spend in the creative process. This software could really change the way we work and many were eager to implement this amazing tool into their workflow. Check out www.gridironsoftware.com for a free trial and to learn more. You can contact Paul at pgrant@gridironsoftware.com.

Mailpiece design was the topic for the second half of the evening. As creatives, we are so focused with design, but if your direct mail can’t find its way into recipients’ hands it can’t work its magic. Making sure mailings get where they’re intended may not be a pure design issue. But in the real world, designers often take on the responsibility. Properly designed mailpieces help you avoid unanticipated costs and delays in delivery. Beginning every direct mail project by contacting the USPS will likely save you and your clients trouble and money in the long run. Russell Boyd, Detroit Mailpiece Design Analyst for the United States Postal Service, is that person in our area and covered what we need to know BEFORE designing any mailpiece. His presentation is available to download below with his speaking notes included in the PDF. Contact Russell at russell.j.boyd@usps.gov or 313-226-8129. You can also go to ribbs.usps.gov where there is lots of information available on the subject. Russell looks forward to hearing from many of you.

As always, our raffle included lots of goodies: Shutterstock t-shirts; ebooks; a subscription to StockLayouts template library; a Blatner Tools plug-in; a FoldRite Template Master plug-in; subscriptions to InDesign Magazine; InDesign Secrets shortcut posters; Gridiron’s Flow software; Markzware plug-ins; one admission to the InDesign Secrets Live seminar in Novi; and one copy of InDesign CS4. Everyone received a Layers Magazine issue, notepad donated by Progressive Printing (Progressive Printing), pens from Glen Moitke at Unfolding Communications (Unfolding Communications) and lip balm from Shutterstock.

Thank you

Thanks to the following sponsors:

* Adobe Systems Inc. www.adobe.com

* Peachpit www.peachpit.com

* O’Reilly www.orielly.com

* Shutterstock www.shutterstock.com

* KW Media for copies of Layers magazine www.layersmagazine.com

* Gridiron Software www.gridironsoftware.com

* InDesign Magazine www.indesignmag.com

* InDesign Secrets http://indesignsecrets.com

* Markzware www.indesignmag.com

* Stocklayout www.markzware.com

* XChange International www.xchangeuk.com

* FoldRite www.foldfactory.com

* Schoolcraft College (www.schoolcraft.edu) for the meeting space and food, especially the Computer Graphics Technology Department for event support.

And a big thank you to our Answer Desk volunteers: Robert Robbins Jr., Marty Smith, Laura Lyday and Geof Innis.

Upcoming Industry Events

Be among the first to see CS5!
Join Adobe online for the exclusive global launch of Adobe Creative Suite 5!
Monday, April 12, 2010
8:00 AM Pacific Daylight Time (11am EDT/4pm GMT)
Register at http://bit.ly/IDUGCS5.

InDesignSecrets Live!
Need to get more done in less time? This full-day fast-paced fun-filled seminar, presented by internationally acclaimed InDesign and InCopy expert Anne-Marie Concepcion, will give you the tips tricks and techniques you need to make the leap from “user” to “Power User!”
Tuesday, April 6, 2010
Sheraton Detroit Novi
21111 Haggerty Rd
Novi, MI 48375
http://iddet.eventbrite.com/
IDUG members can get 10% off the conference registration fee. See the Member Benefits area to get the discount code.

Detroit Earth Day 2010 -- Print Media and Sustainability
hosted by Grand River Printing & Imaging
April 22, 8 am-noon
Detroit Institute of Arts
This event is free
. Go to www.grpinc.com/earthday2010 for more information and to register.

The InDesignSecrets Print and ePublishing Conference
May 12-14, Seattle, WA
IDUG members can get 10% off the conference registration fee
http://indesignsecretslive.com/

Adobe® Photoshop® for Photographers Seminar Tour with Ben Willmore
Monday, May 24, 2010
10 am-5 pm
Burton Manor, Schoolcraft Road, Livonia
$99.00/ $79 NAPP members
Register at www.kelbytraininglive.com

Comments from attendees

Flow presentation was very informative, good info, and good energy by the presenter. USPS info is useful, glad it will be on the website due to the amount of info.

Love the talk about Flow. Hope to get it so I can keep myself organized.

The presenter for Flow was very outgoing and energetic and made the product very interesting. USPS presentation was interesting and pretty informative. Venue was great, topics were actually much better than I was originally expecting.

Paul was great! Flow seems like a valuable tool. Russell provided great info. He know his stuff!

Flow -- energetic presentation. Would be a great addition to assist any design/creative professional. Postal presentation -- thanks for the updated info!

Flow is a very cool program. Must add it to my wish list.

The Flow presentation was great! I came for the postal presentation and fell in love with Flow.

Paul did a wonderful job, and what a great product! Thanks for exposing us to this great tool.

Russell’s presentation made it very obvious how important mailing rules and costs dictate much of the design process. Wow, so much to be aware of.

Next Meeting

The next Detroit IDUG meeting will be Tuesday, May 4 at Schoolcraft College in Livonia. Topic TBA.

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Attached File/s

• USPS_Presentation_with_notes.pdf