Tampa InDesign User Group

Meeting Summary

Event Details

November 21st marked the last meeting of the 2008 year for the Tampa Bay InDesign User Group. There were 38 members and a handful of potential new members in attendance. We gathered for our final meeting at the Poynter Institute in St. Petersburg, FL to get a first-hand look at Adobe CS4 Design Premium. Patrick Koster, a senior solutions engineer from Adobe, wowed the audience with many of the new features spread throughout the new Creative Suite.

Some of the highlights included:

Photoshop
• New interface (Bridge also has a new working interface too)
• Productivity enhancements
• More like Windows but in a good way
• Pixel grade
• Content aware scaling. Spring loaded functionality to images br> • Visual icons for the adjustment layers, with adjustment presets
• 3D (Extended only) New 3D menu. Making a 2D image 3D.
• Channels are used to tell PS what to preserve.

Patrick showed us additional tricks like:
• Holding down the H key with the zoom tool to zoom out and moves the image around
• In the Dodge, Burn, and Sponge tools, new protection of tone "check mark".

Illustrator
• Multiple art board - One file, many art boards. Print to PDF where every art board is a separate PDF.
• On gradient controls from the Gradient panel. Opacity to a gradient. A lot of creative freedom!
• Introduce the Blob brush. Path created from a blob. Works well with eraser brush and smooth brush.
• Drag selected element to panel like (spring loaded) symbols.
• Isolate selected path with breadcrumbs to back out as needed.
• Gradients can now include transparent color.
• Fade to transparent.
• Appearance panel.
• Select same appearance attributes. (free distort) You can disable appearance effects without taxing your processor. Very good for Gaussian blur.
• Graphic styles allow you to see what is going to happen before you apply it. You can combine graphics effects.

InDesign
• Tabbed windows
• Convert an InDesign document to Flash. Adding interactivity to design.
• Smart cursor. Smart Guides. We all think these rock. Links panel has been improved.
• Buttons panel
• Normal, rollover, and click state. Automatic.
• New hyperlinks/Cross-Ref. panel.
• Page transitions. Page turn (SWF Only).
• Export to SWF
• Links panel now has thumbnails. You can now open/edit with from the Links panel. Group every instance of an image in the Links panel. Shows the page where the image is linked. Takes you to the object and resized to fit image to window.
• Link Info gives IPTC (metadata) and lots of other info. You can show in panel as well.
• Rotating spread
• You can edit tables in Story Editor and add notes.
• Cross-ref. Wow. Remember how you felt about nested styles and then Grep? Now there is cross reference. Synchronized text.
• Conditional tags.
• Multi-channel publishing.
• Live Preflight -- completely customizable to match the things you want to have flagged. Like “non-proportional scaling”. It will indicate as you create the file. No longer do you wait for the end. These can be embedded in the file.

Thank You

• KW Media the publishers of Layers Magazine (http://www.layersmagazine.com/) • Lynda.com • Adobe Press: http://www.adobepress.com • Total Training: http://www.totaltraining.com • Adobe Systems: http://www.adobe.com • O'Reilly Media: http://www.oreilly.com/ • Peachpit Press: http://www.peachpit.com/index.asp Thanks as always to our location and communication sponsors: • The International Academy of Design and Technology • Tampa Business Journal • Create Magazine • Ad2 Tampa Bay • Creative Tampa Bay • Tampa Tribune Business Section • Weekly Planet • Sarah Schweiger Creative Design Services • Betsy Bugeja – Digital Media Creations.tv (Public Relations) • St. Pete Times • AIGA • The Tampa Graphic Design Meetup.com Group http://graphicdesign.meetup.com/90/?gj=sj6) We appreciate everyone who attended!

Job Opportunities

Our friends at RedVector are seeking a web marketing manager.

Job Title: Manager, Web Marketing
Classification: Full Time, Permanent
Department: Marketing

Description:
Reporting to the Vice President, Marketing, we are seeking an internet marketing professional to join our growing online team. Your primary goal is to generate qualified leads for our Sales organization using online marketing tactics. To be successful in this role, you must be an expert in email best practices and have demonstrated expertise in CAN-SPAM compliance, privacy issues, and any internet marketing regulatory issues in the U.S. Additionally, you must have experience in managing, executing and monitoring the performance of various online marketing channels and techniques, including: Search Engine Marketing, Search Engine Optimization, online affiliate programs, online display advertising, landing page creation and web form conversion optimization, and A/B multivariate testing.

General Duties:
• Design and recommend short and long-term online lead generating strategies.
• Provide oversight of email process, data and tool improvements and maintain the email production schedule.
• Provide leadership and direction to an experienced creative team to test new email campaigns and outreach.
• In partnership with the web team, oversee and manage various marketing channels, SEO/SEM/Link building through web analytics and online knowledge to drive traffic from search.
• Work with outside agency to manage aspects of planning and implementation of online marketing campaigns: CPM efforts, bid management, keywords expansion, monitoring landing pages and ongoing optimizations.
• Assist in developing and implementing the strategic online marketing plan for media team.
• Stay abreast of changes in the online marketing environment and trends to best serve the objectives of the organization and adjust plans accordingly.
• Additional responsibilities include: project and budget management and agency and vendor relationship management.

Requirements:
• 3 to 5 years of relevant, transferable online marketing experience
• Bachelor’s degree from accredited university
• Email marketing experience, particularly ExactTarget or equivalent
• Marketing automation expertise, particularly Microsoft Dynamics or equivalent
• CRM experience, particularly Salesforce.com and Microsoft Dynamics or equivalent
• Online marketing analytics experience, including Google Analytics, Omniture, or equivalent
• Proficiency with Microsoft Office (Excel, Word, PowerPoint, etc.)
• Demonstrated expertise in email marketing techniques, including track record of delivering successful results
• Demonstrated expertise in Search Engine Optimization techniques, including web conversion planning, analysis, and reporting
• Demonstrated expertise in Search Engine Marketing campaigns, including track record of delivering successful results (CPM, CTR, CPC, CPL, CPA)
• Experience in managing affiliate partners and developing affiliate networks
• Buying and contract negotiation experience, including acquiring optin lists and managing partnership agreements
• Strong verbal and written communication and presentation skills
• Ability to work in a fast paced environment

Please submit inquiries electronically. NO AGENCIES, PLEASE!!!!

Let them know you read about this opportunity through the Tampa Bay InDesign User Group

Send your resume to:
RedVector.com, Inc.
4890 W. Kennedy Blvd
Suite 740
Tampa, FL 33626
Email: careers@redvector.com

Upcoming Industry Events

One-day InDesign Class, Feb 21
In addition to our general meeting on February 12th, we will be offering a one-day class with Douglas Mitchell at the Art Institute on the 21st of February. This will be limited to the first 30 people that are interested in the day-long training event. More details to come.

The Adobe Creative Suite 4 Launch Tour
New York, January 16
Learn everything you need to know about the new Adobe Creative Suite 4! This one-day seminar brings the best of both worlds: in the morning, get an overview of what’s new in Adobe Creative Suite 4 directly from some of Adobe’s best presenters; in the afternoon, two tracks—design and web—given by renowned industry experts, provide in-depth information, tips and tricks, and productive techniques. Whether you’ve already upgraded to Adobe Creative Suite 4 or are still deciding, this is your chance to get all the info you need!

Also playing in Chicago on January 21 and Los Angeles on February 19.
For more details or to register (only $49), go to http://www.mogo-media.com/seminars/the-adobe-cs4-launch-tour

Comments from the evaluation sheets

"Presentation was very nice. Patrick was informative and able to keep attention of audience. I like that he showed tips and new features that are useful in everyday applications. He is a very good public speaker and I would be interested in attending future meetings he speaks at." L. Finelli

"Patrick gave us an excellent presentation on CS4. The need to design for print, web and video is important to me! CS4 is a very nice step forward." C. Lasky

"Great Presenter - Patrick really knows his stuff... I came expecting not to want to upgrade to CS4 soon, instead I am salivating for the productivity... S.M.

Next Meeting

Our next meeting and the first for 2009 will be February 12th, 2009 at the Art Institute in Tampa in the central atrium. It will begin at 6pm with announcements. Shortly after the announcements, Florida-based trainer and Adobe Certified Instructor Douglas Mitchell will be presenting.

There are hundreds pieces of clip art, icons, symbols, royalty free to use in projects. Find out where to find them, how to modify and export them into InDesign & Photoshop. You DO NOT need to know how to draw with the Pen tool to use these this free vector artwork. Please come and see what you can do starting from ground zero.

Create infinite color schemes, then save as swatches to use in Illustrator, InDesign, Photoshop. Quick start by defining color schemes using Illustrator predefined color sets (examples): earthtones, foods, metal, nature, corporate, art history. Your project colors will never be the same. This is unquestionably one of the greatest features ever. This alone is worth using Illustrator.

Take away the mystery — learn the five rules to DRAW with the Pen tool. Douglas has developed a method to explain how to draw Bezier Curves (like Perrier) with the Pen tool to hundreds of students, and production staff at all levels, including college. I can teach anyone how to draw with the Pen tool. Please come, you may give yourself a new career. Free Training Videos from Adobe —buried treasures in Illustrator. I wish to share with you where to find these free Adobe training videos. There is so much you can learn in a few minutes.

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