Washington, D.C. InDesign User Group

Meeting Notes Archive

Thursday, December 8, 2005

This was our second meeting of the season. We had an excellent turnout, especially given the weather scare, of about 80 members. People started arriving before the official 6:00 pm starting time. Many quickly volunteered to help set up the tables, staff the registration desk, and get the pizza — basically getting the group ready for the hospitality for which we are known.

At about 7:00, Ken Chaletzky, the group chapter representative, got the meeting started by announcing all the preliminaries, as well as reminding people of all the literature and samples waiting for them at the registration desk. He introduced the feature speaker of the evening, Linda Harper.

Linda, a professional graphic designer from the Richmond area, took us step by step through the process of creating a brochure from scratch. New users learned one pro’s method, picking up lots of tips and tricks along the way. Even more experienced users found they came away with useful tidbits that they could put into practice. Personally, I liked the way Linda arranged her layers, made use of nested styles, and organized her library of InDesign® Snippets — a new feature of InDesign CS2. Attendees received an actual printed copy of the brochure so that they could follow along as Linda built the document.

George Perikles of The Magazine Group was our second presenter. The Magazine Group is a 15-year-old company that produces magazines and develops websites for about 70 clients throughout the United States. George discussed the nearly concluded challenge of making the transition from QuarkXPress to InDesign. His insights into the needs of his clients and colleagues put an interesting perspective on the process. Getting people to change, even for the better, is not always easy. But his company spent the time upfront to plan the transition and the training to make it a successful move.

Magazine Group Success Story - Download PDF file (1.2 Mb)

At the end of the evening, we had our drawing for prizes. We had everything from T-shirts to books to software, with the grand prize being a copy of InDesign CS2.

Photos From This Meeting
Photos are available from this user group meeting.
See the photos.

Meeting Notes Archive
View notes from past meetings of the Washington, D.C. InDesign user group.
• Read notes from other meetings!

Meeting Topics Archive
With user group chapters across the United States, Europe, and Australia, we have gathered quite a bit of information from presenters, Adobe representatives, attendees, and industry experts during the past four years.
• Read all of the notes