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Meeting Summary

Behind the Design Scene
Thu, Sep 11th, 2008 at 6:30 PM
Macomb Community College
Event Details

It was a beautiful evening for our September 11 meeting at Macomb Community College. The sandwiches were a tasty treat for the 120 people who signed in.

It was revealed in the opening announcements that our Detroit chapter just surpassed the 1,000 membership milestone. And CS4 is being released soon. Check the Adobe Web site for details and mark your calendars for our next meeting of November 4 where we will see first-hand some of the newest features.

Our first presenter this evening was Patrick Becker from WoodWing. He demonstrated their Smart Styles, Smart Layout and Smart Catalog plug-ins for InDesign, a few from their product solutions that will increase your productivity. 30-day trials are available from their Web site to download. And you thought InDesign was already a great program!

Our feature presentation was in response to your survey comments to see good design examples. We were honored to have The Park | Team Detroit present a few of their campaigns.

Mike Treppa, Managing Director, provided an overview of the The Park | Team Detroit, talked about career opportunities and introduced the staff who would be presenting. The Park is home to 70 passionate experts in a broad range of disciplines. As an autonomous business unit within Team Detroit, The Park offers its clients an impressive range of talents with an unprecedented array of resources all under one roof.

Then Michele Silvestri, Associate Design Director, showed a portfolio of outstanding work the agency had produced.

Representatives from The Park | Team Detroit then presented the following case studies:

PGA Championship—Ruben Ramen, Sr. Designer & Mark Yost, Production Artist

Warriors In Pink—2008 print campaign by Christine Jones, Designer (Kate Clevio, Production Artist, wass not able to attend)

WPP—internal company directory by Linda Bickel, Sr. Designer & Dorion Cable, Production Artist

The projects included die cuts, embossing, debossing, thermography, specialty papers, packaging design and intricate assembly issues. They explained in greater detail the file setup and production concerns getting the projects to press. Not only did we get to see great design, they showed us behind-the-scenes in their InDesign files to see how it’s done. An inspiration to all of us!

Prizes that we gave away to wrap up the evening included Design Box Cards from StockLayouts, Kelby Training DVDs, a subscription to InDesign Magazine, InDesign Keyboard Shortcuts posters from InDesignSecrets.com and many books. Everyone received a notepad from ArborOakland Group, and a copy of the July/August issue of Layers magazine. The grand prize of a CS3 Design Premium package went to another first time attendee.

Thank you

We would like to thank the following sponsors for their continued support:
* Adobe Systems Inc. www.adobe.com
* KW Media www.kelbymediagroup.com
* Peachpit www.peachpit.com
* O’Reilly www.orielly.com
* Stocklayout www.stocklayouts.com

Thanks to the Media & Communication Arts Department at Macomb for coordinating the meeting space, food and event support.

Comments from attendees

"The Park was awesome -- loved every minute."

"Loved The Park presentation. Nice combo of creative, production and career."

"I appreciated the InDesign deconstruct of the Park’s projects."

"The Park presentation was very impressive & inspiring. Especially enjoyed seeing the production files of the case studies."

"The Park | Team Detroit was really fun to watch. A great spectrum of the InDesign capabilities. Thanks!"

"It was interesting to see inside an actual agency -- the creative and the work flow, to the actual product."

"Great mix of ideas from overview of the organization to the specifics of production. Really liked the project production details."

"Patrick showed some nice features and I plan on downloading and playing with their software."

"Mr. Becker’s presentation was amazing. Automation is great! The Smart products are amazing -- what a relief for production."

Next Meeting

Our next meeting will be Tuesday, November 4 at Schoolcraft College in Livonia. Find out what’s new in InDesign, Photoshop, Illustrator and other CS4 Design Premium applications. Adobe’s Noha Edell will be on hand to demonstrate and will include Bridge enhancements if there is time.

Make sure you vote before coming to the meeting!

Donna Gniewek
Detroit InDesign User Group Chapter Representative

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